There are various forms to choose from when compiling a museum’s collection catalogue. One approach consists in producing a rather rudimentary listing of the material and technical aspects of an object, its provenance, the relevant literature and exhibitions, and possibly a short descriptive text. The other extreme is the catalogue that seeks to do justice to the current state of scholarship and to be the last word on the subject – at least for the time being. These two extremes encom- pass a number of possible variants. When the Van Gogh Museum decided in the early 1990s to produce a series of collection catalogues of its paintings and draw- ings by Van Gogh, the general feeling was that it could only be done on a grand scale. The museum was developing into a centre of Van Gogh scholarship, and entertained hopes of producing a new, fully annotated edition of Van Gogh’s correspondence.