Revealed: why Van Gogh’s ‘empty chair’ paintings were never shown together

Sister-in-law hid one dedicated to Gauguin because of ‘anger at the French artist’s attacks on his former friend’Shortly before Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear and had a breakdown after quarrelling with his fellow artist, Paul Gauguin, in the French city of Arles in 1888, he created a pair of extraordinary paintings. One, Gauguin’s Chair, depicts a couple of books and a lit candle discarded on an ornate armchair. The other, Van Gogh’s Chair, shows a tobacco pi