Ears to a new relic: it's a Van Gogh work to be worshipped

Genetically regrowing Van Gogh's ear is fascinating, because it returns us to how the artist saw himself: as a martyr of art

German museum exhibits Van Gogh's ear replica grown from relative's cells

Vincent van Gogh's ear has returned from the grave or rather, the ditch or dump where the grisly piece of flesh he severed from the side of his head in December 1888 probably ended up. Van Gogh left it at a brothel in Arles. Presumably the prostitutes chucked it out with the rubbish.

Now it has been regrown from genetic material supplied by the great-great-grandson of Vincent's brother Theo. It is on display at a museum in Germany and Diemut Strebe, the artist behind this resurrection of art's most famous missing body part, hopes to tour it to New York. Will the ear get its own seat on the plane? Will it become an art world star?

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