1. Meeting of the governing council of a Protestant congregation.

2. The two youngest children of Posthumus Meijjes and his wife were Egbert Johannes Wernhardt and Catharina.

3. Reinier Posthumus Meijjes was in training in The Hague in the Koninklijke Marine (Royal Navy); he later became lieutenant at sea of the first class. See Gedenkboek honderd jarig bestaan der adelborsten-opleiding te Willemsoord 1854-1954. Ed. P.S. van ’t Haaff and M.J.C. Klaassen. Bussum 1954, p. 109, no. 595.

4. The entrance examinations required for the study of theology.

5. Eccl. 1:8.

6. John 14:1.

7. Mark 11:22.

8. Cf. Eccl. 2:10 and Eccl. 5:17 (in KJ Eccl. 5:18).

9. Eccl. 1:2.

10. 2 Cor. 6:10.

11. 1 Cor. 1:21.

12. Cf. Acts 16:11 and Acts 21:1; ‘we came’ occurs several times in Acts.

13. John 9:4.

14. John 5:17.

15. On Sunday, 2 December 1877, the Rev. Laurillard conducted the 10 a.m. service in the Noorderkerk.

16. Laurillard was famous for originality in his choice of text (BWPGN).

17. Presumably an allusion to a passage in Charles Dickens’s The haunted man (1848), see letter 104, n. 103.

18. Cf. Job 14:1 and ‘Ars longa, vita brevis’, the first aphorism of Hippocrates, a doctor of antiquity (cf. also Seneca, De brevitate vitae, I, 1).

19. John 11:5. Van Gogh wrote ‘Mary’ where the Bible has ‘Martha’.

20. Obviously Vincent wanted to visit the museums in Haarlem and Dordrecht (together with Theo, as emerges later on in the letter).

21. On the opposite side of the Kattenburgerbrug (Kattenburg Bridge) lie the Oostelijke Eilanden (Eastern Islands) of Kattenburg, Wittenburg and Oostenburg, separated from one another by three wide canals and a number of side-streets. None of the bookbinders listed in the Adresboek 1876-1877 (pp. 523-524) lived in this neighbourhood.

a. Read: ‘Die er zodanig uitzien dat’ (whose appearance makes me think of).

22. Cours de dessin. Avec le concours de J.-L. Gérôme. Paris 1868-1870 by Charles Bargue was a series of drawing examples published by Goupil & Cie as loose leaves. Vol. 1, Modèles d’après la bosse, which consisted of 70 plates, concentrated on the drawing of plaster casts. The example of Anne of Brittany, after the sculpture by Jean Juste de Tours, came from this volume (no. 39). Ill. 527 . Vol. 2, Modèles d’après les maîtres, comprised 67 drawn copies after great masters. See Chetham 1976, pp. 255, 259; and ‘Modèles et ouvrages spéciaux pour l’enseignement des arts du dessin’ in Cat. Goupil 1877.

23. Plate 53 in Charles Bargue’s Cours de dessin is Jeune femme. Moulage sur nature (Young woman. Cast). Ill. 1863 .

24. For Jules Goupil, A young citizen of the year v , see letter 132, n. 17.

25. In 1491, Anne of Brittany, the daughter of the last duke François ii (of Brittany), married King Charles viii, and after his death Louis xii (in 1498). The Dutch expression ‘een waar koningskind’ (literally: a true child of a king) means ‘an especially beautiful child’.

26. See letter 135, ll. 81-86.

27. It is not known to whom this refers.

28. Read: ‘indefessus (or indefessi)’. This line is quoted again in letter 143. It is not known how Mendes became acquainted with this adage; in any case, the Amsterdam bookseller Frederik Muller used it as his motto from 1875 onwards. See Marja Keyser et al., Frederik Muller (1817-1881). Leven & werken. Zutphen 1996, pp. 72-73.

29. The Londoner Harry Gladwell was still working in Paris.

30. Regarding the feast of St Nicholas, see letter 59, n. 1.

31. For the Hand-Atlas, see letter 134, n. 6; the map of the British Isles was no. 45 and that of Normandy and Brittany no. 34.

32. For Spruner-Menke, Atlas antiquus, see letter 134, n. 5. ‘Britannia et Hibernia’, which Van Gogh copied, is map no. 18 (Amsterdam, Universiteitsbibliotheek). Ill. 1350 .

33. Stieler 1876 contains two maps of the world, nos. 6 and 7, which show the most important air currents and gulf streams.

34. Van Gogh is probably referring to Camille Bernier, Bestiaux sous arbres (Cattle beneath the trees), which measures 105 x 175 cm (present whereabouts unknown; sold at auction in Amsterdam (Mak van Waay), 23 February 1971, cat. no. 37). Cf. Tableaux modernes & aquarelles. Catalogue des cabinets importants formés par Mr. J. Wurfbain par Mr. Dr. A.W.C. Brens (Collection mise aux enchères à cause de départ) et par Mr. C.M. van Gogh (Cabinet mis en vente, le propiétaire s’étant retiré des affaires). Amsterdam (Frederik Muller & Co.), 23 February 1892, p. 3, cat. no. 10 (no ill.). (Lugt 1938-1987, no. 50514).

35. It is impossible to determine which drawing by Johannes Bosboom Uncle Cor had at this time; four drawings with ‘sacristy’ in the title are known. Since Sacristy of the church at Bergen (1848) was already in Fodor’s collection when the Museum Fodor first opened in 1863, this cannot have been the one intended (see cat. Amsterdam 1863, p. 46, cat. no. 293). The others are Sacristy at Boxmeer (1850 or slightly later, ‘large watercolour’), Sacristy with a pillar in the middle (c. 1860, no mention of measurements) and Sacristy at Alkmaar (31 x 42.4 cm). See Marius and Martin 1917, pp. 130, 132, 138; and exhib. cat. Delft 1958, p. 13, cat. no. 22.

36. The drawings by Maria Philipina Bilders-Van Bosse have not been traced. For Gruson’s Histoire des croisades. Racontée à la jeunesse, see letter 134, n. 16.

37. For the lithograph Returning from the cemetery by Jacob Maris, see letter 114, n. 3. The figure in the background seems more like a mourning woman than a ‘monk’, as Van Gogh supposed.

38. In addition to the lithograph for Cor and the map for his parents, Van Gogh sent a present to Etten for Willemien, namely a Dutch translation of the book Hermann und Dorothea by J.W. von Goethe. Anna received ‘a couple of testaments’ (prayer books with parts of the New Testament, perhaps supplemented by other liturgical texts or hymns), and Elisabeth received H.C. Andersen’s Vertellingen van de maan (FR b2572, b2575 and b2576). Van Gogh continued to be fascinated by maps; a year later he made, at his father’s request, five maps of Palestine for use in his father’s confirmation classes. One of them, ‘Palestina. Het Heilige Land’ (Palestine. The Holy Land), is reproduced in Stokvis 1926, facing p. 1; see FR b2448.

39. The Naval Arsenal on the island of Kattenburg; this building, which was designed for the Amsterdam admiralty by Daniël Stalpaert, was completed in 1658. See Sjoerd de Meer, ’s Lands Zeemagazijn. Zutphen 1994.

40. Isa. 22:11.

b. Read: ‘rounds’.

41. The modern steam-powered propeller-driven ship Atjeh, launched on 6 December 1876, had only recently – on 1 November 1877, in fact – been put into service (The Hague, Collectie Instituut voor Maritieme Historie, Marinestaf). Ill. 1864 .

42. The gun turrets, which were grey, were painted with red stripes.

43. 1 Cor. 1:18.

44. John 6:68.

45. Matt. 4:4.

46. Matt. 6:25 and Luke 12:23.

47. John 17:3.

48. Matt. 24:35, Mark 13:31 and Luke 21:33.

49. E. Laurillard, Uit de cel. Schetsen en beelden uit de gevangenis. Amsterdam 1876 (From the cell. Sketches and stories from prison). In this devotional book, Laurillard describes more than 40 visits to the prison and talks he had with prisoners, by means of which he hoped to foster understanding for the prison system. Some of the chapters close with moralizing maxims. It is possible that Van Gogh had been urged to read this book by his parents, who knew it and had written about it enthusiastically to Theo in September. In the words of Mr van Gogh: ‘Could you not get hold of a book by Laurillard: Uit de cel. We read it recently. It is touchingly beautiful and rich in short, revealing aphorisms, which one would wish to remember and apply to oneself as well as to others’. Mrs van Gogh added to this: ‘We read such a wonderful book, Uit de cel, oh how great things arise from small causes, no wonder Jesus gives us the lesson for life, Watch and pray so that you come not into temptation. My dear Theo, you already know the seriousness of life. Old boy, don’t forget to look at your book for the lesson for the day, and to strengthen your faith in God’ (FR b2555 and b2556, 21 September 1877). Vincent gave Mr van Gogh a copy of the book for his birthday in 1884 (FR b2252).

50. E. Laurillard, Rust een weinig. Oudejaarsavond-gedachten. Amsterdam 1869 (2nd ed. 1872) (Rest a little. Thoughts on New Year’s Eve). This book by the minister-writer is a mixture of devotional aphorisms and reflections, in both prose and verse.

51. Ezek. 33:11; Van Gogh added the phrase ‘who hath... and live’.

52. As appearing in Rust een weinig. Amsterdam 1869, pp. 141-143. Laurillard based his text on Moore’s ‘Paradise and the Peri’ (from ‘Lalla Rookh’). See Moore 1910, pp. 394-401.