Revolver Van Gogh may have used to kill himself on auction

PARIS – A Paris auction house says it’s selling a revolver that was possibly used by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh to take his own life.

Hailed by some as the art world’s most famous weapon, Auction Art is putting the 7mm pocket revolver up for sale June 19 at the Drouot auction centre in Paris.

The revolver was discovered in the 1960s in fields in the northern French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh is widely believed to have shot himself in the chest in 1890. He died two days later.

A book by Pulitzer-prize winning authors questions that version of events, however, concluding that he was fatally shot by two teenagers.

The pistol going under the hammer was displayed at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam as part of a 2016 exhibition.