9

The exhibition. Signed and dated Allebé 1870. 61.7 × 52 cm.

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, inv.nr. A 2173. Presented to the museum by a relative of the art dealer C.M. van Gogh.

Nrs. 8 and 9 were originally parts of a single painting which the artist himself dismembered and gave away to two different parties: The guard to a charity sale and The exhibition to a relative of the art dealer C.M. van Gogh. Elie van Schendel, in the catalogue of the Mesdag Museum, suggests an intriguing reason for this act of artistic desperation: 'Allebé was in Brussels from 1868 to 1870. In the latter year his brief career as a painter virtually came to a close, with his appointment as professor at the State Academy for Fine Arts in Amsterdam. This left him very little time for his own work, especially after he became director in 1880. His diaries and correspondence... reveal that he was moreover extremely insecure about his work and was afraid, as a professor, of being criticized for showing such oldfashioned, romantic paintings. This may have had something to do with the dismemberment of the painting.'

A sad case, especially since, as van Schendel also reports, the artist was especially fond of the painting. He copied The guard on a smaller scale to be presented to King Willem III on his silver anniversary in 1874, under the title 'Soliloquoy,' and seems to have named the large version 'An old friend.'

Van Schendel 1975, nr. 2.