Van Gogh 3-D replicas for sale in Beijing

Axel Ruger, the Van Gogh Museum's director. Dai Ruoying / For China Daily

Boulevard de Clichy, for example, was created in 1887 when Van Gogh worked in Paris where he started to become a Modernist artist. In a letter to British painter Horace Mann Livens (1862-1936), Van Gogh wrote, "There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here and if it became worse and harder even - the French air clears up the brain and does one good - a world of good".

The Relievos are the first step for the museum to have a presence in China. A Chinese edition of complete letters from Vincent to his brother Theo will be published by the Shanghai Culture and Art Publishing Group in September.

"There are many different dimensions to him (Vincent van Gogh). On one hand, we want to show people what he made. Also we want to make accessible more information about him as a person - for example, he was a very avid letter writer," says Axel Ruger, the museum's director, who is also visiting Beijing.

He says the upcoming book of letters provides an incredible insight into the artist; and a fair number of letters also contain sketches and drawings that refer to his paintings.

The Amsterdam-based museum claims to have the world's largest collection of Van Gogh's work, including 200-odd oil paintings, 500 sketches and 800 letters. It annually receives nearly 1.5 million visitors, whose average age is 32.

Willem van Gogh says it proves young people's enduring fascination with the artist.

"The number of visitors is still increasing. Thanks to the latest technology, people can enjoy Van Gogh's art via social media and ultimately, they do want to see the real ones, and get the feeling of who Van Gogh was and of visiting where he grew up," Willem says.

The museum will launch a new website in more languages.

"Chinese will be one of them. Once we raise enough money to finance it, we will certainly intensify our relationship with the Chinese audience," he says.

"Chinese tourists who come to the Netherlands don't visit our museum that much. That's really what we should work on - to get the visitors to not only see the windmills, but also visit museums.

"In the mid- to long term, we certainly are interested to see whether we can organize an exhibition in China as we've done in other countries already. This is a big market, obviously."