The Mystery of the Disappearing van Gogh

The producer, Wang Zhongjun, was on a roll. His company had just helped bring “Fury,” the World War II movie starring Brad Pitt, to cinemas. He dreamed of making his business China’s version of the Walt Disney Company.

The sale, according to Chinese media, became a national “sensation.” It was a sign — after the acquisition of a Picasso by a Chinese real estate tycoon the year before — that the country was becoming a force in the global art market.

“Ten years ago, I could not have imagined purchasing a van Gogh,” Mr. Wang said in a Chinese-language interview with Sotheby’s. “After buying it, I loved it so much.”

A Painting’s Many Lives

But within hours of coming to the village, he met Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, a doctor and an art enthusiast.

“I’ve found in Dr. Gachet a ready-made friend and something like a new brother,” van Gogh wrote to his sister.

The physician encouraged van Gogh to ignore his melancholy and focus on his paintings. He completed nearly 80 of them in two months, including “Portrait of Dr. Gachet,” considered a masterpiece. He produced “Vase With Daisies and Poppies” at the physician’s home and may have given it to him in exchange for treatment, biographers say.

About that time, Mr. Goodyear wanted to sell the 26-by-20-inch still life to raise money for another museum. It failed to sell at Christie’s in November 1990, where it had been expected to fetch between $12 million and $16 million. Soon after, a lower offer was accepted from a buyer who remained anonymous.

Most of the 400 or so oil paintings van Gogh produced during his last years — considered his best work — are at arts institutions around the world. About 15 percent are in private hands and not regularly on loan to museums. In the past decade, just 16 have been offered at auction, according to Artnet, an industry database. Among them was “Orchard With Cypresses,” from the collection of the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, which Christie’s sold last year for $117 million to an undisclosed buyer.

The Producer and the Billionaire

But the main attractions were the van Gogh and a Picasso he had recently bought, “Woman With a Hairbun on a Sofa.” Sotheby’s said Mr. Wang had paid nearly $30 million for the work.

Until then, Japanese industrialists, followed by American hedge fund managers and Russian oligarchs, had captured headlines for record-breaking purchases. Around 2012, newly rich Chinese buyers, who had benefited from their country’s market-opening policies, came on the scene.

“All the auction houses really jumped on that,” said David Norman, who headed Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art department when the van Gogh was sold.

“It is a combination of vanity, investment and building their own brand,” said Kejia Wu, who taught at Sotheby’s Institute of Art and is the author of a new book on China’s art market.

Mr. Wang, 63, basked in the spotlight. In interviews, he spoke of his admiration for van Gogh and the artist’s influence on him. “Few people in the world would buy this kind of painting — there aren’t that many who love Impressionist art this much and can afford it, right?”

Days after the hammer fell at Sotheby’s, Mr. Wang had told a Chinese publication that he had not bought the painting alone, though he offered no details. Later, he no longer mentioned any partner. “When I saw the painting at a preview, I just felt like owning it — it stirred my heart,” he said in an interview published on Sotheby’s website.

The high-profile acquisition, made through an intermediary and with the ultimate source of funds remaining a secret, is the kind of transaction governments have been trying to curb in recent years.

A spokeswoman for Sotheby’s said it vetted all buyers and, when necessary, enlisted its compliance department for “enhanced due diligence.” Sotheby’s applies worldwide a 2020 European Union rule that requires auction houses to verify the legitimacy of funds.

Ms. Zhao, 43, who no longer holds that position, now teaches piano. Asked about Mr. Liu’s purchase of the van Gogh, she responded, “Do you think our house comes close to the price of that painting?”

She and Mr. Liu were “just ordinary little employees,” she said, with no connection to the Tomorrow Group, the collection of companies controlled by the billionaire. “We have no right to make any decisions and no right to know anything.”

The couple appear to have been “white gloves,” a term used in China to describe proxy shareholders meant to hide companies’ true owners. Among the thousands of pages of records providing details about the Tomorrow Group is a spreadsheet listing dozens of such people. At least four offshore companies were registered in Mr. Liu’s name.

Those companies were part of Mr. Xiao’s vast enterprise. He had showed early promise, gaining admission to China’s prestigious Peking University at age 14 and serving as a student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen protests. He sided with the government, an allegiance that would help him become one of the country’s richest men, acquiring control of banks, insurers and brokerages, as well as stakes in coal, cement and real estate.

Why one of his lieutenants paid for the van Gogh is not clear. Mr. Wang, the producer, was among the ranks of China’s wealthiest people, though not nearly as rich as Mr. Xiao.

Mr. Xiao’s easy access to money outside China through his offshore network allowed him to bypass the country’s strict currency controls; he may have acted as a kind of banker for Mr. Wang. The documents show that the two men were drawing up art investment plans the same month as the auction, but their joint venture, based in the Seychelles, wasn’t formed until a year later. Meanwhile, the two set up another offshore company, aimed at investing in film and television projects in North America.

There could be another explanation for the payment: Mr. Xiao may have wanted to acquire an asset that could be transported across borders in a private jet, free from scrutiny by bank compliance officers and government regulators.

An Abduction, and a Vanishing Act

Art purchases became more discreet. In 2016, Oprah Winfrey sold a Klimt painting to an anonymous Chinese buyer for $150 million.

By early 2017, Mr. Xiao’s life as a free man was over. One night, about a half-dozen men put him in a wheelchair — he was not known to use one — covered his face and removed him from his Hong Kong apartment. He was taken to mainland China and eventually charged. Prosecutors claimed that his crimes dated back before 2014, the year the van Gogh was sold.

He was sentenced last August to 13 years in prison for manipulating financial markets and bribing state officials. The court said Mr. Xiao and his company had misused more than $20 billion.

Government officials dismantled his companies in China. At some point, the British Virgin Islands business that bought the van Gogh changed hands and Mr. Liu was removed as its owner.

But the market value of his film studio, Huayi Brothers, vaporized as it backed flops. Mr. Wang let go much of his art collection and his Hong Kong home. Last year the Beijing museum was sold off, along with a mansion tied to him in Beverly Hills.

Mr. Wang and a spokesman for his company did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Mr. Xiao could not be reached for comment in prison, though a family representative said the billionaire’s wife did not know of any involvement in the van Gogh purchase and was unfamiliar with Mr. Liu.

Van Gogh’s floral still life — a vibrant painting by one of the world’s most acclaimed artists — hasn’t been seen publicly for years. But there are reports that the artwork may be back on the market.