First of all, let's bring the story up to date. The drawings were published by the art historian as a book titled "The Lost Arles Sketchbook" in mid-November, 2016. However, soon after the publication of the book, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said they had been aware of the sketchbook for some time (as early as 2008) and, based on "high-quality photographs sent to them of 56 of the 65 drawings," concluded they are imitations of Van Gogh sketches. The statement, which outlined the museum's reasoning, called the drawings "monotonous, clumsy and spiritless." The museum's full statement on the sketchbook can be found here.
Just for the fun of it, I'm going to point out some of my own observations as to why I don't think this particular drawing is a real Van Gogh. First of all, I'm going to assume that the picture above is meant to be seen as a self-portrait. Van Gogh made several self-portraits wearing a hat like that, and since it's the image published on the cover of the book, I'm guessing the art historian believes it is a self portrait as well.
But if that's the case, it doesn't look like any other Van Gogh self-portrait that I've seen. First of all, look at the eyes in the "sketchbook version" (below left) compared to the eyes in two other Van Gogh drawings, or even any of the eyes in the painted portraits below those. The "sketchbook" eyes look different and don't have the same feel. Also look at the way Van Gogh portrays his eyebrows in his other works - usually furrowed brows, unlike the non-chalant look in the "sketchbook" version.
But here's what I think is an even-more significant detail: the "sketchbook" version shows the subject looking straight-forward, whereas all of these other Van Gogh self-portraits are at a three-quarter angle, never straight-on. I've seen some Van Gogh self-portraits that are closer to straight-on, but none like this particular drawing.
Now let's look at the style and some of the techniques shown in the "sketchbook" Van Gogh, compared to other known authentic Van Gogh drawings. The first thing that catches my attention in the "sketchbook" version is the wide array of mark-making techniques in the background. There's at least 5 or 6 different mark-making techniques included in this background: straight horizontal marks (see #1, circled below), heavy dark brown dots (#2), smaller light brown dots (#3), a series of much-thinner and reddish ink vertical lines (#4), cross-hatching on the top-left corner of the hat (#5), and so forth. But look at the other Van Gogh drawings: usually the background or sky is only dots, and not a mix of marks; when multiple styles of mark-making are present, usually they are confined to separate sections, not overlapped and mixed together like the "sketchbook" version. Look at the line on the "sketchbook" left shoulder (#6) - see where it makes a "W" and "M" all in one continuous line? It goes up and down 8 times in one continuous mark, where there is nothing like that in any of these other drawings. The other three drawings all have a sense of "tightness" or controlled composition where the "sketchbook" version seems to have different marks all over the place - a totally different feel, in my opinion.
So, what do you think? Granted, this is just an analysis of one drawing from a sketchbook of 65 drawings, but there seem to be enough simple inconsistencies or problems with this one drawing to cast it into doubt, at least I think so. We'll have to keep an eye on this story and see how it further unfolds.
