Every design for Etten-Leur

In Etten, Vincent van Gogh opened his first studio and began his life as an artist, and the Van Gogh Etten-Leur Museum Sint Paulus hofje keeps that beginning close. The town around it grew from two villages, Etten and Leur, both founded in the Middle Ages and always part of one municipality. They did well during the Dutch Republic, except in the years of the Eighty Years' War, when the area was a major battleground: Etten lived on peat, while Leur was a small trading port with its own harbour. The nineteenth century brought decline, and Arnold Damen left Leur to work as a missionary in the United States. In late October of the last autumn of the war, American infantry freed both villages from German occupation.

A sense of two places in one still lingers. After the government decided to encourage growth and industry, Etten and Leur spread towards each other until they met, and the combined name followed. Later, when the motorway was moved out of the centre, a compact new heart rose on the old route, with shops, cafés and the town offices.

Each June the old harbour of Leur comes back to life for the Leurse Havenfeesten, crowded with people along the water where traders once came and went.