Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in the town of Groot- Zundert in Brabant, a region of The Netherlands close to the Belgian border. He was the oldest child of Theodorus van Gogh (1822–85), a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Community, and Anna Cornelia Carbentus (1819–1907). Vincent was born exactly one year after the first Vincent Willem had been stillborn to Anna Carbentus on March 30, 1852. There is little or no evidence that Vincent knew very much about this would-be older brother, but certainly some psychoanalytical biographers have worked themselves into a Freudian frenzy about the coincidence of these birthdays and about Vincent's torturous psychological struggle as the "replacement child" for his parents. Vincent was to have five siblings: two brothers, Theodorus (Theo) (1857–91), who would become his favorite
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