Since 26 March 2017 the village of Boxmeer in Brabant, the province where Vincent van Gogh was born and spent a large part of his life, now has a genuine copy of Van Gogh’s famous bedroom in Arles, France. Following the success of an earlier reconstruction of ‘The Bedroom’ at the Museum Art Institute in Chicago in 2016, and the touring version of the bedroom by the Dutch artist Cornel Bierens in 1989, this is the first permanent reconstruction where visitors can also spend the night.
Following the recent discovery that Vincent van Gogh’s famous bed should have been returned to Boxmeer after the second world war, a search for the original bed began in 2016. Although the bed has yet to be found, this didn’t prevent the owner of Hotel Riche from making a contemporary ode to the world’s most famous artist. The hotel bedroom is an exact copy of Van Gogh’s painting ‘The Bedroom’ from 1888; with the same colours, the paintings, the chair and wash stand.
The Boxmeer initiative clearly shows that the story of Van Gogh not only inspires people all over the world, but that Van Gogh has also left his legacies all over Brabant.