Three women gather beneath a canopy of chestnut trees on a quiet street in Auvers-sur-Oise, their brightly colored figures nearly swallowed by thick strokes of green and orange. Above them, the blue sky appears in fragments. Vincent van Gogh painted "Châtaigniers en fleurs" on May 24, 1890, only days after arriving in the French village and roughly two months before his death. More than six decades after its last public exhibition, "Châtaigniers en fleurs," or "Chestnut Trees in Blossom," has resurfaced in Hong Kong ahead of its November 18 auction at Sotheby's in New York. The painting is expected to fetch approximately $180 million, potentially establishing a new auction record for the Dutch artist. Its previous public appearance was at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1964. Measuring just 70 by 58 centimeters, the oil painting belongs to Van Gogh's remarkably productive final period. He had recently left the psychiatric..
