Treasures from the Van Gogh Museum

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This unique group of paintings--part of more than 200 Vincent van Gogh canvases kept by the troubled artist's brother, Theo, and his family--constitutes the largest exhibition ever shown outside the Netherlands.

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, a village in the southern province of North Brabant, the Netherlands, the eldest son of the Rev. Theodorus van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. At the age of 16, he started work at The Hague gallery of the French an dealers, Goupil & Co., in which his uncle Vincent was a partner. His younger brother Theo later worked for the same firm.

In 1873, Goupil's transferred Van Gogh to London. Two years later, they moved him to Paris, where he lost all ambition to become an an dealer. He immersed himself in religion, threw out his modern, worldly books, and became "daffy with piety," in the words of his sister Elisabeth. He was dismissed from Goupil's at the beginning of 1876. Van Gogh took a job as an assistant teacher in England, but, disappointed by the lack of prospects, returned to Holland at the end of the year. He then decided to follow in his father's footsteps and …