Vincent Van Gogh Cut Off His Ear After Learning His Brother Was to Marry, New Research Shows

‘Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear,’ 1889, by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890). (Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

It turns out Vincent Van Gogh wasn’t an artist who was so jealous of his friend’s success that he cut off his ear. He was merely an artist who was so angry at his brother for marrying that he hacked an ear off.

Allow us to explain.

Brilliant Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh’s ear slicing is the most famous act of self-butchering in the history of art, but the exact motive has remained unknown ever since the incident occurred in December of 1888.

Until now, the most popular theory was that Van Gogh severed his left ear with a razor (either wholly or partly—even that detail is up for debate) after a vicious argument with his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin, who was more successful than Van Gogh at the time.

A woman looks on the living replica of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh's famously severed ear which is displayed at Culture and media museum ZKM, in Karlsruhe, southwestern Germany, on June 4, 2014. The ear is part of the exhibition 'Sugababe' by Diemut Strebe, an artist specialised in artworks using biological material, who collaborated with scientists to reconstruct the Dutch master's ear using DNA from a relative and 3D printers. The show will be on display in Karlsruhe until July 6, 2014 before moving to New York in early 2015. AFP PHOTO / THOMAS KIENZLE +++ RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE, MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION, TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION (Thomas Kienzle/AFP/Getty Images)

A living replica of Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh’s famously severed ear is displayed at culture and media museum ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, on June 4, 2014. (Thomas Kienzle/AFP/Getty Images)

But Van Gogh historian Martin Bailey, in his new book Studio of the South, reveals evidence to suggest that Van Gogh actually mutilated himself in his home in Arles, France, after discovering in a letter from his brother Theo (his confidant and financier) that Theo was prepared to marry a woman named Jo Bonger.

This letter from Theo to Vincent arrived on December 23, 1888, according to Bailey. He says it included 100 francs, but also news of Theo’s impending marriage to Bonger.

Later that night, after arguing with Gauguin (who left the house and threatened to move back to Paris), Van Gogh sliced off his ear, wrapped it in paper, and walked to a brothel, where he delivered it to a young woman, believed to be either a prostitute or a farmer’s daughter working there as a servant.

The woman opened the “gift,” fainted on the spot, Van Gogh left, and the police were called. Van Gogh was found unconscious the next morning by a policeman and taken to the hospital, where a young doctor named Felix Rey treated him. The ear was brought to the hospital as well, but Rey did not attempt to reattach it.

Curator of Van Gogh paintings at the Van Gogh Museum Nienke Bakker looks at the painting 'Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey', part of the exhibition 'On the Verge of Insanity', at the museum in Amsterdam on July 12, 2016. Amsterdam's renowned Van Gogh Museum unveiled a new exhibition on July 12 focusing on Vincent's final 18 months of mental anguish before he shot himself in 1890, including the suspected gun he used in his suicide. / AFP / ANP / Robin van Lonkhuijsen / Netherlands OUT (Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP/Getty Images)

Curator of Van Gogh paintings at the Van Gogh Museum Nienke Bakker looks at the painting ‘Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey,’ on July 12, 2016. (Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP/Getty Images)

Interestingly, Van Gogh would eventually create a painting of the doctor and present it to him, called Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey. But Rey was apparently not a fan of the painting and used it to repair a chicken coop, then gave it away.

Earlier this year, Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey was estimated to be worth over $50 million. It’s currently housed at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

You can read more about Bailey’s new research about Van Gogh’s ear incident here, and buy his book here.