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The Van Gogh Museum is located in the Museum District and houses the largest collections (about 207 paintings, 550 drawings and more than 700 letters) of Vincent Van Gogh. The root of the collection is from the family’s collection. The museum’s current site is its original building erected 41 years ago.

Vincent Van Gogh had a short and intensive life. He practised his career for only 10 years and was believed to have committed suicide at the age of 37 in 1890.

That is part of the mystery and key to the success of the museum in a way, because if one had such a young talent and a tragic end, people will always wonder what happened to him. He hardly ever sold anything in his life so his entire production of paintings, drawings and the letters he wrote to his brother were with his brother, Theo, in Paris.

Theo died later and everything was left to Theo’s young widow. She was the one that made Van Gogh known; she started selling from the collections. Her son decided to keep what was left of the collection together. Other than leaving it to his children, to the dismay of some of them, he sold the collections to the State of Netherlands. This was how the museum came about and was opened in 1973.

The museum attracts about one and a half million visitors yearly and 85 per cent of these visitors come from abroad.

Visiting the house would not leave anyone in a happy mood as one gains emotional insight into his lonely world, a story that could not have been told better except through his art.