Ten Early Van Goghs Reunite in Paris for Collector Fayet Show

Ten paintings by Vincent van Gogh that once hung in the same private collection are on show together again in Paris.

They opened to the public on 9 October at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, as part of Gustave Fayet: Collector - Artist Designer. The exhibition runs until 8 March 2027, according to The Art Newspaper.

The collector was Gustave Fayet, a French artist, designer and buyer. Between 1901 and 1909 he bought 16 paintings by Van Gogh, at a time when few others were buying. LVMH head Bernard Arnault described him as “one of the best kept secrets in the history of Modern art”.

The Paris show is large. It presents more than 600 works by Fayet and other artists across four floors of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the glass-sailed building designed by Frank Gehry in the Bois de Boulogne. The foundation says more than 250 works from Fayet’s collection are brought together for the first time in a century, including 78 works by Paul Gauguin and 86 by Odilon Redon.

Fayet’s first Van Gogh purchase was Arena in Arles, painted in November-December 1888 and now in the State Hermitage Museum. He then bought Public Garden in Arles (The Poet’s Garden), painted in October 1888, in 1901 and kept it until his death. He paid 2,000 francs for it. By 1924 it was valued at 200,000 francs.

He also bought Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe, painted in January 1889, in 1902 and kept that work until his death. It is one of the portraits Van Gogh made two weeks after he mutilated his ear following a row with Gauguin. Its return to France is listed by the Fondation Louis Vuitton as a highlight of the exhibition.

Public Garden in Arles has its own backstory. It depicts the square outside the Yellow House in Arles. Van Gogh painted it two weeks before Gauguin’s arrival, to hang in the spare bedroom prepared for his guest.

What makes this stand out for visitors is the price trail and the timing. Fayet was buying Arles-period Van Goghs within a decade of the artist’s death, holding on to key canvases, and watching their paper value multiply a hundredfold in twenty years. Ten of those choices can now be seen in one place.