"Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe" (1889).

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear: Vincent van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear depicts the artist after his self-mutilation and subsequent hospital stay in late 1888.

Let's just declare the situation vacant 17 Jan 2012: How difficult can it be to recreate a relatively straightforward painting such as Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear?

Other paintings include van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Peach Blossoms in the Crau, Gauguin's Nevermore and Te Rerioa, and important works by Seurat, Henri "le Douanier" Rousseau, Toulouse-Lautrec and Modigliani.

Inspirations and influences: Van Gogh's Self-Portrait With A Bandaged Ear has been echoed many times over, especially since the 1970s when the artist's body became a material for making art.

How difficult can it be to recreate a relatively straightforward painting such as Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear?

Tim Dowling remakes Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear.

My choice, Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, from 1889, was pretty straightforward, or so I thought: coat, hat, bandage, done.

To prove it, feature writer Tim Dowling is tasked with re-enacting Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear with the aid of "my wife's coat, a borrowed hat and some bandages from the first-aid kit".

A Wheatfield with Cypresses was sold in 1993 for $57 million, a spectacularly high price at the time, while his Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear was sold privately in the late 1990s for an estimated $80/$90 million.