Book excerpt: Helene Kröller-Müller purchased her first work by Vincent van Gogh in 1908: 'Edge of a wood' dating from 1883. This modest and still fairly traditional painting laid the foundation for a Van Gogh collection that would expand rapidly in the period that followed. That same year, she acquired the considerably more daring painting 'Four sunflowers gone to seed' (1887). Today, the Kröller-Müller Museum is proud custodian of the second largest Van Gogh collection in the world: 88 paintings and over 180 works on paper.0 0This is the first book in which the Kröller-Müller?s entire collection of Van Gogh paintings and drawings has been reproduced and described, embedded within the story of his life and his art.