1. Regarding the poetry album Vincent made for Theo, cf. letter 29, n. 1. The album contained nine poems by Heinrich Heine, including the poem ‘Meeresstille’ (Calm sea) mentioned here, all copied from Buch der Lieder (1827). See Pabst 1988, pp. 33-37.

2. Matthijs Maris, Souvenir d’Amsterdam (The Nieuwe Haarlemse Sluis on the Singel), 1871 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). Ill. 1702 . Maris painted this little panel (46.5 x 35 cm) after a stereoscopic photo of Amsterdam’s Haarlemmersluis. In 1872 it was in the hands of the art dealer Daniel Cottier in London, where Van Gogh may have seen it. See Heijbroek 1975, pp. 279-281.

3. Here Van Gogh seems to be mistaken in associating ‘Meeresstille’ with Maris' s painting, because ‘Seegespenst’ (Sea monster) is more reminiscent of this work. In Buch der Lieder it immediately follows ‘Meeresstille’, another poem of which Van Gogh copied excerpts for Theo. Cf. Heinrich Heine, Buch der Lieder. Ed. Pierre Grappin. Hamburg 1975 (Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke. Ed. Manfred Windfuhr). ‘Meersesstille’: vol. 1.1, pp. 382-383, 384-389 and vol. 1.2, pp. 1028-1032.

4. It cannot be said with certainty which version of Jacob Maris’s View of the Schreierstoren Van Gogh had in mind. Maris made a number of them from 1872 onwards. (See exhib. cat. Paris 1983, p. 213, cat. no. 62 and Peter C. Sutton, Northern European paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia 1990, pp. 194-195, cat. no. 67.) The depiction in the version in The Hague (Gemeentemuseum) comes close, at least as regards subject matter, to the painting by Matthijs Maris, View of the Schreierstoren, Amsterdam. Ill. 1703 .

5. Regarding The cliff , see letter 29, n. 2 and n. 8.

6. This refers to something that Theo must have written about or sent.

7. Mr van Gogh planned to visit Theo soon. Lies wrote to Theo: ‘How nice it was for you that Pa came to see you’ (FR b2330, 11 April 1875).