New study says brother's marriage prompted Van Gogh to cut off ear

Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off part of his left ear, because he was afraid to lose his brother Theo’s emotional and financial support, British scientist Martin Baily argues in the British periodical The Art Newspaper.

Vincent had learnt of his brother Theo’s intention to get married shortly before he mutilated himself. Vicent feared this marriage might mean an end to his brother’s financial and emotional assistance, or so Baily thinks. The British scientist sees evidence for his theory in Van Gogh’s 1889 work Still Life with a Plate of Onions, which he finished soon after he took to his ear with a razor blade. An envelop figures prominently in the canvas and Baily believes this contained the letter with the news about the marriage plans.

Baily studied the painting, which is part of the Dutch Kröller-Möller museum’s collection, and noted the envelop is marked with an circle containing the number 67, the official postal stamp of the Place des Abbesses post office, not far from Theo’s Montmartre apartment. The envelope also bears a special New Year’s Day postage stamp. According to the Parisian postal museum, in the 19th century letters were stamped with this mark starting halfway through December. The mark would thus confirm the letter was sent only shortly before Van Gogh sliced his ear of on December 23, 1888.

Baily also bases his conclusion on a letter Theo wrote to his fiance. In that letter, Theo mentions visiting Vincent on Christmas Day after hearing of his auto-mutilation. "When I talked about you, he immediately knew what I was on about. When I asked him if he agreed with us, he said marriage should not be seen as the most important thing in life," Theo wrote.

Earlier this year, German scientists put forward the claim that it was fellow painter Paul Gauguin who cut off Van Gogh’s ear, not Van Gogh himself. Both Baily and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam reject this notion.