1. This fabric of linen-like cotton served to filter the light.

2. Either Carpenter’s yard and laundry (F 944 / JH 153 ) or another, unknown drawing of the same subject (see letter 235, n. 2).

3. Earlier in a similar context Van Gogh wrote: ‘In medio noctis vim suam lux exerit’ (letter 133). We know of no Rembrandt print with this inscription.

4. For this print after Rembrandt, Reading the Bible , see letter 37, n. 4. Rembrandt is known as the great master of chiaroscuro. Cf. Fromentin 1902, chapter 13, pp. 350 ff.

5. For this print after Scheffer, Christus Consolator , see letter 85, n. 7.

6. For prints after Millet’s The sower and The two diggers , see letters 156, n. 3 and 142, n. 18, respectively.

7. For this print after Jacob van Ruisdael, The bush , see letter 35, n. 5.

8. For Charles Degroux, The paupers’ pew , see letter 148, n. 12.

9. A.J. van der Drift.

10. Borrowed from Jules Michelet, La femme, see letter 189, n. 28. See also n. 12 below.

11. Possibly a quotation.

12. In the sentence before the quotation (see n. 10) Michelet wrote in La femme: ‘Nature has made life a threefold and unbreakable knot: man, woman and child’ (La nature a formé la vie d’un noeud triple et absolu: l’homme, la femme et l’enfant) (Michelet 1863, p. 67).

13. The director was Gerrit Pieter van Tienhoven; the physician in charge was Cornelis Anthonie Molenaar; see letters 237 and 243.

14. The watercolour Scheveningen woman knitting (F 870 / JH 84 ); cf. letter 192, n. 4.

15. The suspicion on the part of Mr van Gogh that his unease during the visit was caused by the arrival of someone he was not supposed to meet was thus justified; see letter 239, n. 7.

16. Emile Zola’s Le ventre de Paris (1873) is set mainly in ‘Les Halles’, the newly-built food markets of Paris. The leading character Florent is arrested soon after the coup d’état of 1851 and deported to Cayenne to do forced labour. He escapes and in 1858 returns to Paris, where he searches out his half-brother Quenu, who is married to Lisa Macquart. Florent is given a job as a salesman in their butcher’s shop. Having suffered years of injustice, he sets up a secret socialist society through which he naively plots against the state. His sister-in-law, the embodiment of the ‘petite-bourgeoisie’, discovers his plans and betrays him. After Florent has again been arrested, the neighbourhood is once more peaceful, and prosperous times lie ahead for the shop.