Framing Van Gogh: why the artist did not want to surround his works with gold

London's National Gallery exhibition "Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers" displayed nearly all of its loaned paintings in ornate gilded frames, despite the artist's documented preference for simple, unadorned wooden frames. Van Gogh wrote to his sister Wil questioning the need for gilding, and Paul Gachet Jr., son of the doctor who cared for the artist, called gold frames around Van Gogh's works "an act of moral barbarism." A few exceptions stood out, including six paintings from the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, which were shown in replica frames based on early 20th-century designs by Jacob van den Bosch, and a Van Gogh from Tokyo's National Museum of Western Art that was reframed in a replica of a frame once owned by Dr. Paul Gachet.