Original manuscript

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b43 V/1962

Van Gogh says at the beginning of the letter: ‘On Sunday I went again to Monsieur Bersier’ (the italics are ours). In the previous letter (letter 40), dated Friday, 13 August, he speaks of first attending that church on 1 and 8 August. Since he has again gone to that church, this letter will have been written after Sunday, 15 August. Considering that letters 42-45 were written within the space of a week, and this letter (with a reference to his mother’s birthday on l. 39) cannot have been written later, it must have been written before the following surviving letter, which is dated 2 September.