Court rules in favour of homeowners in land dispute over site of Van Gogh's final painting

In the final hours of his life, a 37-year-old Vincent Van Gogh set up his easel beside a tangled slope of roots and painted with furious intensity. The result - Tree Roots (1890)- was a chaotic burst of colour and form, interpreted by many as a visual cry from a mind in anguish.

It is widely believed to be his last work before he shot himself in a nearby wheat field later that same day.

More than 130 years later, that very spot - a quiet patch at the bottom of a garden in Auvers-sur-Oise - became the unlikely centre of a longstanding, bitter legal battle.

Since Van Gogh's final painting was identified to the garden of 48 Rue Daubigny in 2020, the homeowners, Jean-François and Hélène Serlinger, have turned their land into a destination for art lovers, offering guided tours (currently €8 per visit) and drawing visitors from around the world.

However, the village mayor, Isabelle Mézières, launched a legal bid to seize the land, arguing it should belong to the public, not private individuals, and claiming it was part of the public road. The Serlingers insisted otherwise. They bought the land in 2013, long before its significance was discovered.

A lower court ruled in the couple’s favour in 2023, and now the Versailles appeal court has confirmed the decision, bringing the long-running feud to an apparent end.

"The embankment containing the tree roots painted by Vincent Van Gogh does not constitute an accessory to the public highway," ruled the Versailles Administrative Court of Appeal.

Since the ruling, Mézières has taken to social media to denounce the ruling and vowed to continue legal action, declaring: “These roots are not a commodity - they belong to the people of Auvers."

She added: “We are continuing our appeal. There is no question of giving in to the public interest of the people of Auvers over private interests. The question of ownership is not settled."

How was the real-life spot of Van Gogh's final painting originally identified?

The location of the legendary Dutch painter's suspected final artwork was identified by Dutch researcher Wouter van der Veen, the scientific director of the Van Gogh Institute in France.

He made the discovery after recognising that the scene depicted in the painting matched a faded postcard showing a man standing next to a bicycle on a backstreet in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh spent his last weeks. The postcard, which included the name of the street, offered a crucial lead.

Van der Veen's identification revealed that Van Gogh had painted Tree Roots on a sloping bank just outside the village, around 35 kilometres (21 miles) north of Paris. This discovery also provided a new insight into Van Gogh's final hours, confirming that he worked on the piece into the afternoon of his death.

“There has been a lot of speculation about his state of mind, but one thing that is very clear is that he spent quite a bit longer working on this painting right through the afternoon. We know that from the light fall in the work,” Emilie Gordenker, director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, told The Associated Press at the time of the discovery. “So, you know, he really was at work right up to to the end.”

According to the museum's account of Van Gogh's life, after working on Tree Roots, the artist walked into a nearby wheat field later that day and shot himself in the chest with a pistol. He died two days later, on 29 July 1890, at the age of 37.