Van Gogh Ear Replica Displayed in German Museum

n undated handout picture provided by the Orsay Museum press department on 11 March 2014 shows the painting `Portrait de l`artiste` (1887) by Dutch post-Impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Karlsruhe's Center for Art and Media is exhibiting a genetic copy of the left ear of Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, which he cut off in 1888.

Museum officials are quoted by the Huffington Post Germany as saying the genetic "reconstruction" was created by Diemut Strebe, who used cells of an heir to Van Gogh, namely his brother's great-great-grandson, Theo.

The two brothers shared one-sixth of their genes, as well as the y-chromosome which is passed to male individuals of subsequent generations.

A computer (and a group of scientists) helped to shape Theo's cells so that they look like the famous ear.

Strebe says she perceives the "cloned" ear to be "a mixture of art and science".

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