With the Montblanc Masters of Art Homage to Vincent van Gogh Limited Edition 90, Montblanc celebrates Vincent van Gogh, one of the most popular painters of the late 19th century. This edition especiallyemphasises his time in Arles with design details reflecting his paintings of the Provençal landscapes and the impasto technique he favoured. The engraving of ‘Arles’ on the cap top emphasises the importance of this place to his life and art. Embedded in the cap top in a field of blue lacquer like one of Vincent’s bright stars – an image found repeatedly in his works – is the Montblanc emblem in solid Au 750 yellow gold. The year Vincent van Gogh moved to Arles is commemorated in an engraving of ‘1888’ alongside the signature ‘Vincent’ on the barrelring.Van Gogh developed a looser, freer style and becoming equally competent with brush and palette knife – which he used for chunky, impetuous “impasto” work. In impasto painting, thick paint is applied in rough strokes to create a topography of coloured layers that visually coalesce into an image rich with depth and character. Vincent Van Gogh’s impasto was intense, pushing the technique to a new level where the paint was thick and deep, the colour potent and the strokes of the palette knife vigorous. This ground-breaking technique is interpreted by hand in the captivating artwork adorning the cap and barrel. Inspired by masterpieces such as The Harvest, the hand-crafted artwork is composed of colours used by Van Gogh for his visions of Provence: warm yellows, resonant oranges and soothing greens. Each writing instrument is unlike any other in the way exuberant strokes of colour fuse into a satisfying whole, giving this edition the lyrical quality of a painted canvas and transforming it into a work of living artistry. His palette knife inspired the clip, while his sweeping brushwork is immortalised in the lacquer of the cap top. Furthermore, his fondness for pipe smoking, to which he referred in many of his self-portraits, is captured in a subtle detail of the clip: the upper part is shaped like a pipe’s bowl and decorated with a fire opal.The famous series of five sunflower paintings inspired the interpretation embossed on the handcrafted Au 750 solid yellow gold nib. As homage for Vincent's fascination of traditional Japanese woodblock prints, the overall shape is inspired by a Japanese woodcutting knife.