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
Drawbridge in Nieuw-Amsterdam 148 watercolors made by Van Gogh, who said of working in that medium in 1881: What a splendid thing watercolour is to express atmosphere and distance,<br> so that the figure is surrounded by air and can breathe in it, as it were. Five years after having made this work, van Gogh made "Langlois Bridge at Arles" in France which captures a lighter mood. Drawbridge in Nieuw-Amsterdam Drawbridge in Nieuw-Amsterdam is a watercolor created in November 1883 by Vincent van Gogh in Drente, The Netherlands. Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, of the view outside his room in Nieuw-Amsterdam, Drenthe: