Vincent van Gogh (Russell painting) Vincent van Gogh" (1887) and Paul Gauguin's "The Painter of Sunflowers" (1888). Van Gogh seems to have been particularly attached to Russell's portrait, which the Australian gifted to him as a mark of their friendship. The painting passed from Van Gogh to his brother Theo, then to their family, and is now in the permanent collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Russell was born into a wealthy engineering family in 1858 in Sydney, New South Wales. The family business, P.N. Russell & Co, was responsible for much of the city's 19th-century ironwork. Although Russell had a strong interest
Japonaiserie (Van Gogh) and his brother Theo dealt in these prints, and they eventually amassed hundreds of them, now housed in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. In a letter to Theo dated about 5 June 1888 Vincent remarks A month later he wrote, Van Gogh's interest in Japanese "ukiyo-e" prints dates from his time in Antwerp when he was also immersing himself in Delacroix's theory of colour and where he used them to decorate his studio. During his subsequent stay in Paris, where "Japonisme" had become a fashion influencing the work of the Impressionists, he began to collect "ukiyo-e" prints and eventually to