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Van Gogh painted the first sunflowers in Arles in the late summer of 1888, in a rush of hope: he was decorating a little yellow house to welcome Gauguin, and wanted whole walls of these flowers to greet his friend. It did not last. By the time he made this version, in January 1889, Gauguin had gone, the two men had fallen out badly, and Van Gogh was recovering from the breakdown in which he cut off part of his own ear. He copied his best sunflower canvases anyway, calling them repetitions and setting flowers against flowers, yellow against yellow. The blooms run the whole span from tight green buds to heads gone ragged and overblown, all held in the same warm light he had wanted for the house.