The Van Gogh painting found in a safe by the Spanish tax authorities after 40 years was presented for authentication to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam in 2008, the Volkskrant says on Monday.

However, the museum has declined to say if it ruled the work was genuine or not. ‘We never do that, unless the owner gives us permission,’ a spokesman said.

The museum did say it had not been approached by the Spanish authorities in the current case, which could indicate that the museum experts had not acknowledged it as a genuine Van Gogh, the Volkskrant says.

However, the museum experts were only given photographs of the painting, which features a cypress tree and clouds, to assess.

Tax fraud

The painting was found in one of 542 safes at 270 bank offices searched by the Spanish tax authorities in a major crack down on fraud. The owner claims he was asked to look after it by a foreign millionaire in 2010.

Experts have concluded the signature on the painting is Van Gogh’s although this still has to be confirmed by the Spanish ministry of culture, El Mundo says.

The painting hung in Vienna University’s art history institute and it is unclear how it ended up in Spain, the paper says. The back of the painting carries stamps from three ‘respected institutes’, El Mundo says. 

One is from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam dated April 8, 1944, one from the Museum der Schöne Künste in Berlin (no date given) and one from the Viennese institute in 1974.

The Van Gogh museum is asked to investigate some 200 supposed Van Gogh works a year but only seven have been recognised as such since 1970, the Volkskrant says.