1. Van Gogh left for the Netherlands on 27 June 1874 and arrived in Helvoirt on 28 June (FR b2709).

2. It is not known which paintings this refers to.

3. An exhibition of the work of living artists was held every summer at the Royal Academy of Arts (in Burlington House on Piccadilly). Three works by James Tissot were on display that year: London visitors, c. 1874 (Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art. Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment. Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey), ill. 1699 ; Waiting (present whereabouts unknown), described in ‘The Royal Academy’, The Art Journal (July 1874), no. 151, p. 200 as: ‘autumn leaves overhanging the figure of a young lady waiting in a boat’; and The ball on shipboard, 1874 (London, Tate, presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1937). Ill. 1700 . See Wentworth 1984, p. 201.

4. It is not known which drawings this refers to. The drawing, previously attributed to Van Gogh, depicting the house at 87 Hackford Road (private collection), is thought by M. Vellekoop and S. van Heugten of the Van Gogh Museum not to be by his hand. Cf. Kenneth Wilkie, ‘Yes! It’s an original’, Holland Herald 8-2 (1973), pp. 10-13; and exhib. cat. London 1992, p. 120, cat. no. 7.

5. César de Cock, known as a painter of landscapes of Flanders and northern France, was called ‘the Flemish brother of Corot’.

6. The meeting referred to must have taken place during Van Gogh’s stay in Paris in May 1873.