Van Gogh in dahlias on the Museumplein today

Some 50 flower parade builders from Zundert gathered on the Museumplein in Amsterdam on Tuesday to build a self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh in dahlias. This 8 by 8 meter flower portrait is to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Zundert-born artist's death on Wednesday.

The flower parade workers worked well into the night to have the portrait, consisting of about 50 thousand dahlias, ready for Wednesday.

"We needed about 50 thousand flowers. This may seem a lot, but it's a tenth of a normal flower car in in Zundert", designer Johan van Trijp said to NU. "He comes from Zundert, he was born there, why wouldn't you connect that with the place were most of his works hang and where his largest presence in the Netherlands is."

Ron Dirven, curator of the Van GoghHuis in Zundert, told NOS that dahlias is ideal for an artwork, because the flower is very stable. "The big advantage of dahlias is that they come in so many colors. You can really paint with dahlias."

The work can be seen on the Museumplein, next to the Van Gogh Museum on Wednesday. It will be broken down again on Thursday.