1. Benjamin Vautier (the Elder) was Swiss by birth, as were Albert Anker and Alfred van Muyden, both mentioned later; the other ‘Alsace’ artists mentioned were German.

2. This is letter 265.

3. This was the ‘Tentoonstelling van teekeningen van het Koninklijk Genootschap van Nederlandsche Aquarellisten. Gotische Zaal, Noord-Einde te ’s Gravenhage’ (Exhibition of drawings by the Royal Society of Dutch Watercolourists. Gothic Room, Noordeinde at The Hague): see letter 265, n. 5. Five Italians were represented: Alberti, Een valkenier (A falconer); Cabianca, Ruïne (Ruin); Cremone, Bouderie (Sulking); Ricardi, Waterdragers in Rome (Water-carriers in Rome) and Zona, Studiekopje (Study of a head). See exhib. cat. The Hague 1882-3, pp. 3, 5, 11, 16, cat. nos. 8, 28, 29, 126 and 199.

4. For this remark about Auerbach, see letter 265, n. 16. The everyday scenes in Alsace depicted by the artists mentioned are also found in the folk tales of Erckmann-Chatrian and Auerbach. They worked together: Théophile Schuler, for example, illustrated 13 books by Erckmann-Chatrian.

5. A reference to Lançon’s print A rag-pickers’ tavern in Paris : see letter 261, n. 5; also mentioned in the previous letter to Van Rappard: see letter 263.

6. Mariano José Maria Bernardo Fortuny y Carbó was strongly influenced by Spanish Old Masters, particularly Goya. Domenico Morelli is known for his realistic depiction of romantic subjects, his striking light-dark effects and his use of richly contrasting colours.

7. José Tapiró y Baró took his inspiration from the work of his friend Fortuny and from the modern Italian genre painters. Ferdinand Heilbuth was influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Erneste Ange Duez is known for his use of colour and the way in which he applied modern techniques to traditional subjects (DoA).

8. On his departure from the London branch, Van Gogh evidently gave his prints to a certain Richardson, a representative for Goupil, as shown by letter 277. It seems less likely that he gave them to the Englishman Harry Gladwell, who replaced Van Gogh when he left Goupil in Paris at the end of March 1876 (cf. letters 71 and 72).

9. By Album des Vosges Van Gogh may mean Le veilleur de nuit. Album d’Alsace et de Lorraine, illustré par MM. P. Ballet, E. Boetzel, de Beylié, Beyer, Brion, Gluck, Haffner, Jundt, Lallemand, Laville, Lévy, Oesinger, Picquart, Th. Schuler, L. Schützenberger, Touchemolin, H. Valentin. We have traced only one volume of this magazine. It was published in 1857 in Strasbourg by G. Silbermann, place Saint-Thomas 3 (Bibliothèque Nationale; Universitaire de Strasbourg, and Bibliothèque Municipale de Nancy).

a. Means: ‘uitverkocht’ (sold out), cf. French ‘épuisé’.

10. Van Gogh wrote down Sir John Gilbert (and not Achille Isidore Gilbert) in a list of English monograms he was to send to Van Rappard in October (see letter 273).

11. For Rochussen’s Headquarters in a townhall , see letter 265, n. 6.

12. For the scene in Erckmann-Chatrian’s Madame Thérèse, in which Dr. Wagner is questioned by an officer, see letter 265, n. 7.

13. Adolf Menzel, Shakespeare, 1850. Friedrich Ludwig Unzelmann made a wood engraving after it in 1852 (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett). Ill. 255 . Cf. cat. Berlin 1984, p. 342, cat. no. 236.

b. Variant of ‘kleine’.

14. For this edition of Franz Theodor Kugler, Geschichte Friedrichs des Großen. Gezeichnet von Adolph Menzel, see letter 133, n. 19 and 235, n. 49.

15. For Whistler’s etchings, cf. Katherine Lochnan, The etchings of James McNeill Whistler. New Haven and London 1984.

16. William Lionel Wyllie painted seascapes, port scenes and the ships of the British fleet. From 1870 he produced numerous prints for The Graphic. See Roger Quarm and John Wyllie, W.L. Wyllie, marine artist, 1851-1931. London 1981. The estate has his The Mediterranean fleet at Sigri – The annual regatta: Start for the Admiral’s Cup, from The Graphic 20 (23 August 1879), p. 172. Ill. 1953 (t*664). There were several seascapes by Wyllie in the current, twenty-sixth volume of The Graphic (1882), which may explain why Van Rappard mentioned them.

17. Van Gogh must mean the engraving after The widow’s acre (1879) by George Henry Boughton; it was in The Graphic 20 (15 November 1879), p. 473. Ill. 621 .

18. For this quotation from Millet in Sensier, La vie et l’oeuvre de J.F. Millet, see letter 210, n. 5.

19. For Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, see letter 143, n. 41.

20. This is the first mention in the correspondence of the model that Van Gogh was to draw often for several months from September: the elderly Adrianus Zuyderland, who had such prominent side-whiskers. He lived in the Old Men’s and Women’s Home in Om en Bij (a street in The Hague), which was supported by the poor board of the Dutch Reformed Congregation. The male residents were known as ‘men on the parish’, ‘almsmen’ (diakoniehuismannetjes). It is not known which drawings are being referred to here. See cat. Amsterdam 1996, pp. 128-145, 160-164, 197-205, cat. nos. 31-36, 42, 55-57.

21. For Georges Karl Robert, Le fusain sans maitre. Traité pratique et complet sur l’étude du paysage au fusain, which Van Gogh had borrowed from Van Rappard as long before as October 1881, see letter 174, n. 8.

22. It is not clear whether Van Gogh means that he is sending wood engravings by Charles Marchal, or prints in the style of his work. The term ‘German’ must refer to the genre-like scenes in Alsace that Marchal depicted. Several of these prints are reproduced in Gautier 1992, pp. 140-142.

23. This might be the work of Henry Towneley Green or of Charles Green. Van Gogh earlier sent “Restoring the sign” by the former, see letter 232, n. 10.

24. Probably Roll’s A miners’ strike ; Van Gogh thought that this print would also please Van Rappard (letter 263).

25. Vincent had earlier written to Theo: ‘Zola is actually Balzac ii’: see letter 250.

26. Van Gogh borrowed this line from Felix Holt, the radical; it is both the motto and the conclusion of Chapter 6.

See Eliot 1980, pp. 66, 80. Eliot took the quotation from Tamburlaine the Great by Christopher Marlowe. See ed. J.S. Cunningham. Manchester 1981, p. 253.

27. In 1869 Charles Rochussen painted the series La ballade: Léonore. xviiie Siècle (Ballad. Léonore. 18th century), consisting of four watercolours entitled: L’arrivée dans le village des troupes revenues de la guerre. Léonore cherche son fiancé; Le désespoir de Léonore; La Mort à la porte de la jeune fille. Clair de lune and La course au cimetière (The arrival of the soldiers in the village, returning from the war. Léonore searching for her fiancé; Léonore’s despair; Death at the little girl’s door, moonlight; Walk in the churchyard) (present whereabouts unknown; in the possession of Hugo Tutein Nolthenius in 1944). See Franken and Obreen 1894, pp. 97-98, cat. nos. 672-675. Rochussen made a lithograph of Léonore’s despair for De Nederlandsche Spectator (22 January 1870), no. 4. Album no. 7, as supplement to p. 35. Ill. 1288 . The watercolours illustrated Gottfried August Bürger, Lenore (1773). See Albrecht Schöne, ‘Bürger’s Lenore’, Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 28 (1954), pp. 324-344.

28. For Gustave Doré and [William] Blanchard Jerrold, London – A pilgrimage. London 1872, and the engraving Scripture reader in a night refuge , see letter 129, n. 36. At the beginning of June Vincent had expressed to Theo his regret that he had not been able to buy the book – it cost 7.50 guilders: see letter 234.

29. This must be the unknown watercolour a sketch of which Vincent had sent to Theo in letter 265: Orphan boys and girls out for a walk (F - / JH 203).

30. De Hollandsche Illustratie was the first illustrated weekly in the Netherlands, and began as the Dutch version of L’Illustration. See Hemels and Vegt 1993, pp. 220-224.

31. Most of the engravings sent can no longer be identified. In the first five volumes (1864-1869) there were five Daumiers, 33 works after Doré, and one after Jacque. There were 42 works by Edmond Morin between 1864 and 1875 (the 11th volume). (Eight issues were missing from the volumes 1864-1882 that we consulted.)

32. The only print by Charles Emile Jacque in this magazine was Het eerste april-gras. Teekening van Ch. Jacques (The first grass in April. Drawing by Ch. Jacque), in De Hollandsche Illustratie 2 (1865-1866), no. 21, p. 168. Ill. 1954 .

33. Honoré Daumier, De vier leeftijden van den drinker (The four ages of the drinker) uit De Hollandsche Illustratie 2 (1865-1866), no. 4, p. 32. Van Gogh’s copy survives. Ill. 51 . (t*1057). In 1890 he made a painted copy after this work, Men drinking (F 667 / JH 1884 ). This is why the print has the pencil lines of the squaring used to make copying easier. The engraving by C. Maurand after Daumier’s Physiologie du buveur – Les quatre âges (The physiology of the drinker – The four ages) originally appeared in Le Monde Illustré 6 (25 October 1862), no. 289, p. 268 and was also published in Journal Illustré (21 May 1865) and Presse Illustré (29 March 1868). See Bouvy 1995, cat. no. 935.

34. Van Gogh may have seen drawings still attributed to Frans Hals at that time or reproductions after them somewhere; no original drawings by Hals are known.

35. De zeebaden. Humoristische teekening van Gustave Doré (Sea bathing. Humorous drawing by Gustave Doré), in De Hollandsche Illustratie 2 (1865-1866), no. 10, p. 76. Ill. 1955 .

36. Amédée Ernest Lynen was one of the founders of the Brussels artists’ society L’Essor (1876-1891). Van Gogh is referring to the drawings by Lynen at the sixth annual exhibition by this society, from 7 January to 8 February 1882 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, namely Un livre (7 dessins), Mon vieux (7 dessins), L’hiver (7 dessins), Dessins, Marée basse (A book (7 drawings), Old chap (7 drawings), Winter (7 drawings), Drawings, At low tide). Van Rappard, himself a member of L’Essor, was represented by two (unidentified) paintings, Jardin botanique à Bruxelles (Botanical Garden at Brussels) and En Hollande (In Holland). See L’Essor Bruxelles. Catalogue de la vie exposition annuelle. Exhib. cat. Brussels 1882, p. 13, cat. nos. 137-141 (Lynen) and 201-202 (Van Rappard).