1. Van Gogh had left Etten for Dordrecht on Wednesday, 3 January (FR b2499) and had meanwhile started work at the firm of Blussé & Van Braam at Voorstraat C 1602, located in Scheffersplein in Dordrecht. The firm sold books and magazines, as well as office supplies, maps and prints (including penny prints and reproductions by Goupil). One of Van Gogh’s duties was to supervise the shipment of goods sent on approval. He also had to keep the books and do odd jobs; in 1914 his position was described by Dirk Braat, a son of Van Gogh’s boss P.K. Braat, as ‘bijlopie’ (errand boy). See Verzamelde brieven 1973, vol. 1, pp. 108-110 (quotation on p. 110).

2. Mr van Gogh was to turn 55 on 8 February 1877, and Vincent had announced that he was coming home for the celebration (FR b2502).

3. The Dutch translation of George Eliot’s Scenes of clerical life was called Novellen (uit het Engelsch, nieuwe uitgaaf onder toezicht van P. Bruijn. Sneek, Van Drunten & Bleeker, 1871 (George Eliot’s romantische werken 1).

4. George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859). For his birthday Mr van Gogh received Eliot’s Silas Marner in addition to Adam Bede and Novellen (see letters 102 and 142).

5. Matt. 12:34 and Luke 6:45.

6. Possibly a saying. Cf. the Dutch saying ‘Iets met de mantel der liefde bedekken’ (Covering something with the cloak of love), meaning to keep silent about something or to explain it away out of mercy.

7. For these two reproductions, Christus Consolator

and Christus Remunerator

, after the paintings by Ary Scheffer in the Dordrechts Museum, see letters 85 and 86.

8. At that time the museum was housed in the upper room of the Boterbeurs (Butter Exchange) in Wijnstraat. See cat. Dordrecht 1992.

9. Ary Scheffer, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, 1839 (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum). Ill. 1783

10. Ary Scheffer, The Moanings of the earth rise up to heaven and change into Hope and Bliss, 1847-1858 (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum). Ill. 1784

11. At that time the museum had five (undated) drawings by Scheffer: Christus Consolator; The deathbed of Saint Monica, The three Marys, The entombment of Christ and The deathbed of Saint Louis. See exhib. cat. Dordrecht 1990, p. 68.

12. This is one of the four depictions of Ary Scheffer’s studio painted by Ary Johannes Lamme, which at that time were in the Dordrechts Museum: The large studio of Ary Scheffer, rue Chaptal, 1851 (two versions); The small studio of Ary Scheffer, rue Chaptal, 1851 (Ill. 1785

) and The small studio in the Roquelaure Pavilion at Scheffer’s house in Argenteuil, 1858. See exhib. cat. Dordrecht 1990, p. 53, cat. nos. 38-39; pp. 69-70, cat. nos. 25-28.

13. Van Gogh probably meant the plaster-cast version of the Bust of Cornelia Scheffer-Lamme, the mother of the artist, 1839. Ill. 1786

. It is less likely to have been Cornelia Scheffer-Lamme (1769-1839), the mother of the artist on her deathbed. Ill. 1787

. See exhib. cat. Dordrecht 1990, p. 51, cat. nos. 33-34, p. 69, cat. nos. 15-16; cat. Dordrecht 1992, p. 132. The painted portraits of Scheffer’s mother were not acquired by the museum until 1899.

14. Andreas Achenbach, View of a beach in Holland with a storm approaching or Hilly landscape with cloudy sky (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum). Ill. 1788

and Ill. 1789

15. Andreas Schelfhout, Winter landscape in Holland (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum). Ill. 1790

16. Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Landscape in the Black Forest wtih lobster fishermen (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum). Ill. 1791

17. August Allebé, Lethe (The podagra patient), 1863 (Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum). Ill. 1792

19. 1 Cor. 13:11-12; Van Gogh quoted first verse 12 and then verse 11.

20. The minister Johannes Wilhelmus Beversen belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran congregation, which at that time was free-thinking (BWPGN, NNBW, and E.H. Cossee, ‘Vincent van Gogh en kerkelijk Dordrecht’, Kwartaal & Teken van Dordrecht 6-1 (1980), p. 5 (n. 6)). The small church is the Lutheran Church at Vriesestraat 20, also known as the ‘Trinitaskapel’ (Trinity Chapel).

22. Van Gogh’s room in the Rijken family’s house (see letter 102, n. 4) was on the first floor at the back of the house, looking out over the gardens of the houses in Groenmarkt and Varkenmarkt.

23. A reference to ‘A rare old plant is the Ivy green’ in Dickens’s poem ‘The ivy green’, in which the line occurs three times. See Charles Dickens, The posthumous papers of the Pickwick club. London 1837, p. 55. Van Gogh quotes from the same poem in letter 114.

24. De Katholieke Illustratie (Catholic Illustration) appeared from 1867-1967 and was published from 1876 onwards by Uitgeversmaatschappij ‘De Katholieke Illustratie’ at ’s-Hertogenbosch. It was eight pages long and every issue contained a number of illustrations. One could buy an annual subscription through a bookseller or the publisher of the magazine, which was sent to subscribers weekly or collected monthly from a bookshop; the price was 7 cents per week or 30 cents per month. See Hemels and Vegt 1993, pp. 262-267; and L.A.C. Jentjes, Van strijdorgaan tot familieblad. De tijdschriftjournalistiek van de Katholieke Illustratie 1867-1968. Diss. Amsterdam 1995.

25. This refers to the 10th volume of De Katholieke Illustratie (1876-1877), which contained illustrations by Gustave Doré accompanying a series of articles called ‘Wandelingen door Londen’ (Walks through London) by J.A. Beerten. The prints mentioned are Langs den Theems (Along the Thames) (Ill. 1793

), Een koffiehuis te Whitechapel (A coffee house at Whitechapel) (Ill. 1796

) and Een onderaardsche spoorweg te Londen (An underground railway in London) (Ill. 1797

); the last one accompanied the article ‘Londen en zijne onderaardsche spoorwegen’ (London and its underground railways) (10th volume, no. 20, p. 160; no. 22, p. 176; no. 21, p. 168 (two illustrations), and no. 18, p. 141, respectively). There is no illustration depicting Westminster. The series’ sequel also contained a number of illustrations by Doré, hence Van Gogh’s ‘&c. &c.’ The illustrations were taken from Gustave Doré and [William] Blanchard Jerrold, London – A pilgrimage. London 1872, pp. 17, 185, 6, 141, 113, respectively.

26. Paulus Coenraad Görlitz was an assistant schoolmaster in Dordrecht. For Görlitz’s recollections of his contact with Van Gogh, see Verzamelde brieven 1973, vol. 1, pp. 112-113 and vol. 4, pp. 327-334.

27. The River Merwede on which Dordrecht lies.

28. Aelbert Cuyp was famous for his views of Dordrecht.

29. Petrus Marinus Keller van Hoorn belonged to the free-thinkers in the Reformed (‘Hervormde’) congregation. When he was living in Dordrecht, Van Gogh regularly attended services conducted by ministers professing the ethical or modern movement, to which group Keller van Hoorn belonged.

30. Cf. Heb. 10:7-9.

31. On Saturday, 6 January 1877, Keller van Hoorn, his wife Maria Sophia Singels and their children placed an obituary in the Dordrechtse Courant; ‘Our dear Willem died calmly this afternoon; he would have been eight years old on Sunday. Dordrecht, 5 January 1877’. Van Gogh was therefore mistaken about the child’s sex. He made a similar mistake in the letter of condolence he wrote to H.G. Tersteeg on 3 August, in which he recollects Keller van Hoorn’s sermon. See letter 124.