Just 5 months before he died,
van Gogh’s art was praised by art critic Albert Aurier in the newspaper Mercure de France. In a letter to Aurier, van Gogh attempted to shine the light on his inspiration, Monticelli, a man whom he had never met.

“Thank you very much for your article in the Mercure de France, which surprised me a good deal. I admire it very much as a work of art in itself, it seems to me that you paint with words; in fact, I encounter my canvases anew in your article, but better than they are in reality, richer, more meaningful… Anyway – what I am trying to say is that things seem to have mistakenly become attached to my name that you would do better to link to Monticelli, to whom I owe so much.”

– Vincent van Gogh to G. Albert Aurier, February 1890

Van Gogh’s letter to Aurier is valued at $250,000 to $500,000.

     An original oil painting by Monticelli
     was recently auctioned for five hundred dollars.