1. Vincent – evidently following Theo’s advice – had turned to the painter Willem Roelofs, who had been active in Brussels since 1848. By now firmly established as a successful artist and senior member of the community, he occupied an influential position in the artistic life of the city and could prove to be an important contact. Cf. De Bodt 1995, pp. 55-56, 100-102.

2. A. de Zahn [Albert von Zahn], Esquisses anatomiques à l’usage des artistes pour servir aux études d’après nature et d’après l’antique. Leipzig (Librairie Arnold) 1865. This book contains 29 illustrations of anatomical models. The ones Van Gogh mentions are ills. 3094

, 3095

, 3096

, 3097

and 3098

respectively. There is a copy in the Rijksmuseum Research Library (shelf mark 808 E 171).

The Paris bookseller Auguste Ghio had a copy of the book for sale for 1 franc in December 1871 (see Adolphe Chenu, Le mémorial de Napoléon iii. Paris 1872, p. 443). It was reprinted many times and translated. Cf. A. von Zahn, Anatomisches Taschenbüchlein. 17. Auflage. Leipzig (Max Möhring) n.d. [1946].

3. From the first week of November 1880 Van Gogh was enrolled as a student at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Royal Academy of Fine Arts) at Brussels for the course ‘Dessin d’après l’antique: torse et fragments’ (Drawing from antiquity: torso and fragments), under registration number 8488. See exhib. cat. Brussels 1987, pp. 239-242; and De Bodt 1995, p. 278. Van Gogh’s failure to write anything at all about his experiences at the Academy led Hulsker to doubt whether he actually attended any classes (Hulsker 1990-1, p. 91). He must have done, though, for he took part in a concours on 5 December 1880. See Bart Moens, De kunstenaarsopleiding van Vincent van Gogh in Brussel. Unpublished bachelor’s thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel 2012, pp. 36-47. It emerges from letter 161 and others that Van Gogh left the academy shortly afterwards, probably because he finished last in the concours.

4. L’Ecole vétérinaire (veterinary college) near boulevard du Midi where Van Gogh lived. See Baedeker 1885, p. 49.

5. Van Gogh’s goal was to become an illustrator of books or magazines (see letters 162 and 164).

6. Apparently acting on advice from Theo (as he had done in the case of Willem Roelofs), Vincent went to visit Anthon Gerard Alexander van Rappard. Theo must have met Van Rappard in Paris when the latter was a pupil (from October 1879) in the studio of Jean Léon Gérôme. Mrs van Gogh wrote on 5 July 1880: ‘Nice that until October you’ll have a good friend in Mr de Bock and then Rappard’ (FR b2495). After Vincent’s death, Van Rappard recalled that they had met in Brussels at 9 o’clock in the morning in his room. See Pickvance 1992, p. 102.

The emphasis Van Gogh places on the report that Van Rappard ‘now lives’ at rue Traversière (Dwarsstraat) 64, in the St Joost-ten-Noode district in the east of Brussels, suggests that Theo did not know his current address. Cf. exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, pp. 11 (with a different house number), 59 and 68.

7. Van Rappard was a well-to-do member of the nobility.

a. Read: ‘dat alles kost geld’ (all of that costs money).

8. Johann Caspar Lavater and Franz Joseph Gall co-authored a textbook on physiognomy. In this popular mixture of physiognomy and phrenology, parallels were drawn between people’s facial features and skull structure and their character or disposition. These theories were summed up in Alexandre Ysabeau, Lavater et Gall. Physiognomonie et phrénologie rendues intelligibles pour tout le monde. Paris 1862. Van Gogh presumably consulted this survey by Ysabeau – he speaks in fact of an ‘extract’ – the title of which he spelled incorrectly.

He could have discovered this book while reading Gavarni, l’homme & l’oeuvre. He must have become familiar with this work by Edmond and Jules De Goncourt around this time, and they, too, connected the way in which Gavarni depicted the heads of his figures with Gall and Lavater (Goncourt 1873, p. 262). Cf. cat. Amsterdam 1996, pp. 18, 174; The faces of physiognomy. Interdisciplinary approaches to Johann Caspar Lavater. Ed. E. Shookman. Drawer 1993; Georges Lanteri-Laura, Histoire du phrénologie. L’homme et son cerveau selon F.J. Gall. Paris 1993.

9. Two drawn copies after a reproduction of Millet’s The diggers are known from this period: Diggers, after Millet (F 829 / JH C.B.

) and (F 828 / JH Juv. 13

). It is not clear which version Van Gogh is referring to here.

10. Photograph (isograph) of Jean-François Millet, The two diggers (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, t*52). Ill. 1899

. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1988, pp. 11, 30-31, 91-94, cat. nos. 2, 29-30; and exhib. cat. Paris 1998, pp. 142-144, cat. nos. 71-72.

Braun was a publisher who ran an international business in reproductions after paintings and other photographs. After the death of Adolphe Braun, the firm was taken over by his son Gaston and associates. See M. Auer, Encyclopédie internationale des photographes de 1839 à nos jours / Photographers encyclopaedia international 1839 to the present. 2 vols. Hermance 1985.

11. Van Gogh's copy after the photograph, published by Braun, of Millet’s The evening angelus was most likely The angelus, after Millet (F 834 / JH Juv. 14

), which was drawn on Ingres paper, according to cat. Otterlo 1970, p. 5.

12. There are three known copies after the Holbein illustrations in Bargue’s Cours de dessin, two of the Daughter of Jacob Meyer, after Holbein (Cours de dessin, pl. 10). Ill. 937

. It is generally assumed that in letter 169 Van Gogh is referring to the Daughter of Jacob Meyer, after Holbein (F 833 / JH 13

), and that the other copies – Daughter of Jacob Meyer (F 847 / JH Juv. 12) and Figure of a woman, after Holbein (F 848 / JH -) – were done in Brussels; they are dated between October 1880 and April 1881. See De la Faille 1970, pp. 316, 334; Heenk 1995, p. 30; Hulsker 1996, cat. no. 13 and Juv. 12, pp. 14-16, 489. Cf. also letter 159, n. 3.