Source status:
This letter has been preserved in a copy made by Theo on letter paper from Goupil’s in The Hague. Presumably Mr and Mrs van Gogh had sent him the letter to read, at which time he copied it. He crossed out the letterhead, except for the printed date of 1876, noting in the upper left-hand corner of the sheet: ‘copy’.
Date:
Letter headed: ‘Ramsgate 17 April
[1876.
].’ The passage was added to this letter which had been written already on Friday (‘I wrote down a few things in the train and am sending you that’
(l. 9). The fact that this letter has survived in a copy made by Theo (see
Source status) hampers our understanding of how the original letter was written. The events and impressions of Friday
(ll. 11-35) were probably described on a separate sheet, but Theo will have put this part in the proper chronological order relative to the other things related in the letter.
De brieven 1990 dated the letter ‘17 [or 18] April’, but we see no reason to give it that alternative date; Hulsker 1993-1 gave ‘14-17 April’ as the date, because the events of 14-17 April are recounted in the letter.
The letter must be read before the other letter of the same date (
letter 77), because additional information about how he spent that Monday morning is contained in the latter letter, in which Van Gogh speaks of the walk he took that morning
(ll. 13-15) and of the prints that have meanwhile arrived, which he intends to hang in his room
(ll. 25-26).
