A still life once thought to be by Vincent van Gogh but later downgraded to the work of an anonymous artist because of doubts about its authenticity is indeed by the tormented Dutch impressionist, researchers said Tuesday.

The process leading to the confirmation reads like a cold case detective story, with a new X-ray technique helping experts re-examine what they already knew about the painting and draw on a growing pool of scholarly Van Gogh research.

A detailed X-ray of an underlying painting of two wrestlers and knowledge of the painter's period at a Belgian art academy combined to lead a team of researchers to conclude that "Still life with meadow flowers and roses" really is by Van Gogh.

The painting is owned by the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in the central Netherlands and was being hung there Tuesday among its other Van Gogh works.

There was no real eureka moment for the team of experts studying the still life and the underlying image of wrestlers, said Louis van Tilborgh, a senior researcher at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum who took part in the confirmation process.

"All the pieces just fell into place," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.