1. Van Gogh had written candidly to Van Rappard about the fact that he was living with Sien: see letter 307.

2. Francis Montague Holl, Want: Her poverty, but not her will, consents, in The Art Journal, NS, vol. 15. London 1876, p. 10. Ill. 944 . The print shows a woman hesitantly pawning her wedding ring while the pawnbroker and his clerk look on pityingly. Cf. exhib. cat. Manchester 1987, p. 78.

3. An allusion to Van Gogh’s rejection by Kee Vos and his disappointment over the affair; see letters 179 ff.

4. The title is too general for the print to be identified; for a similar work compare, for example, Charles Emile Jacque’s Les ramasseurs de traînes (The wood gatherers) (1851), engraved by Adrien Lavieille, in Le Magasin Pittoresque 19 (December 1851), p. 397. Ill. 992 .

5. Although Van Gogh gives two French titles here, he means Daumier’s Het uitgaan van de schouwburgen (Leaving the theatres) with the caption ‘Die een drama gezien hebben. Die een Vaudeville gezien hebben’ (Those who have seen a tragedy. Those who have seen a vaudeville), and Kunstkenners op een tentoonstelling (Art lovers at an exhibition) both engraved by Charles Maurand, published in De Hollandsche Illustratie 1 (1864-1865), second half, no. 12, p. 96 and De Hollandsche Illustratie 5 (1868-1869), NS, third volume, no. 7, p. 51 respectively. Both are in the estate. Ill. 52 and Ill. 49 (t*1055 and t*8). The gallicized titles would have been made up by Van Gogh himself (cf. n. 9 below). Cf. Bouvy 1995, cat. nos. 922, 940.

6. Numerous illustrations by Adam Adolf Oberländer appeared in the Fliegende Blätter, published from 1863 by Braun & Schneider (Munich). The descriptions could fit Lumpen-Stolz (Proud about rags) and Das Mutterauge (Mother’s eye), in Fliegende Blätter 62 (1875), no. 1555, p. 148 and 71 (1879), no. 1787, p. 135. Ill. 1205 and Ill. 1206 .

7. For Morin’s The famous chestnut tree of 20 March and Boat race in England , see letter 235, n. 24.

8. John Lewis Brown painted many hunting scenes and there are various works that match the title given, such as Chasseurs en forêt (Hunters in the woods). The print is no longer in the estate – cf. for this type of scene Brown’s Le dernier relais (The last staging-post) published by Goupil (no. 897) (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des Estampes). Ill. 653 .

9. Gustave Doré, Het vallen der bladeren (The falling of the leaves) in De Hollandsche Illustratie 5 (1868-1869), NS, third volume, no. 15, p. 120. Ill. 784 . Van Gogh again translated the title into French himself (cf. n. 5 above).

10. Théodore Valério travelled through the Balkans and Hungary, where he made portraits of many beggars, vagrants and gypsies. Van Gogh had the print Among the gypsies, engraved by Blanpain and published in The Graphic 21 (13 March 1880), p. 276 (t*337), but it is not clear whether Valério was the maker. His illustrations to accounts of travels also appeared in Le Tour du Monde (in 1870 en 1877 and other years).

11. Paul Renouard, Les mendiants du jour de l’an (The beggars on New Year’s Day) in Le Monde Illustré 26 (7 January 1882), p. 13 (with 17 figures) and p. 16 (with eight figures). Both sheets are in the estate. Ill. 392 and Ill. 2058 . (t*200 and t*742).

12. A phrase also found in letter 305 to Theo.

13. For Abbey’s Winter , see letter 295, n. 4.

14. Abbey did two illustrations for the poem ‘The Dutch patrol’: see letter 295, n. 4.

15. For Abbey’s Christmas in Old Virginia , see letter 304, n. 37.

16. Caldecott’s Brighton promenade is very probably Afternoon in King’s road : see letters 276, n. 9 and 354, n. 9.

17. ‘Being in correspondence’ must refer to the information that Theo had asked Félix Hilaire Buhot for on Vincent’s behalf; there are no indications that Vincent himself corresponded with Buhot. Cf. letter 280, n. 8, and letter 290.

18. For Dagnan-Bouveret’s A bird charmer in the Jardin des Tuileries , see letter 275, n. 40.

19. For Montbard’s Algerian beggars at the door of a mosque , see letter 275, n. 41.

20. Ferdinand Heilbuth, Beau temps (Fine weather), engraved by Charles Baude, in Le Monde Illustré 25 (17 December 1881), p. 385. Ill. 928 . Stéphane Pannemaker fils made a similar but larger engraving for L’Illustration 79 (24 June 1882), pp. 418-419.

21. Old Christmas from the sketchbook of Washington Irving and Bracebridge Hall from the sketchbook of Washington Irving, illustrated by Randolph Caldecott and published by Macmillan & Co., London, both appeared in 1882 with the subtitle From Washington Irving’s sketchbook. (In letter 316 Van Gogh says he has bought a ‘new’ edition, by which he must mean this sixpenny edition.) These books by Washington Irving have only 36 and 48 pages. The title pages state ‘one hundred and twenty illustrations’ and ‘upwards of one hundred illustrations’ respectively, which were engraved by James Davis Cooper. See Bracebridge Hall. Ed. London 1887, p. 96 (Ill. 2059 ) and Old Christmas. Ed. London 1886, p. 67 (Ill. 2060 ). Macmillan exploited these works by issuing various, often cheap, editions (see those in The British Library in London). Cf. Rodney K. Engen, Randolph Caldecott. ‘Lord of the nursery’. London 1988, esp. pp. 7-24, 97.

22. Several works by Charles Degroux may be the one referred to: Een winters tafereel of De koffietrommel (A winter scene, or The coffee tin), 1857 (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten), Ill. 142 ; Een winters tafereel (A winter scene) (private collection) and Winter (Winter) (present whereabouts unknown). See exhib. cat. Ypres 1995, pp. 84-87, cat. nos. 29-30, 38.

23. For this review, see letter 307, n. 4 and for the first drawing mentioned, Une procession à Mont-Saint-Père (A procession at Mont-Saint-Père) letter 308, n. 5. The two other drawings are Léon Augustin Lhermitte’s Pèlerinage à la Vierge de Kersaint (Pilgrimage to the Virgin of Kersaint) (present whereabouts unknown), no. 259 (Ill. 210 ) and Un coin d’une place de marché en Bretagne (A corner of a marketplace in Brittany) (present whereabouts unknown), no. 194. For Pèlerinage à la Vierge de Kersaint, see Le Pelley Fonteny 1991, p. 442, cat. no. 674.

24. For this expression from Victor Hugo, Les contemplations, see letter 143, n. 5.

25. The Goncourt brothers recorded this pronouncement by Gavarni in Gavarni, l’homme et l’oeuvre as follows: ‘There’s a flirtatious, silly, unbearable, empty, hollow woman: that’s a young girl; there’s a tall, beautiful, devoted being: that is that young girl when she has become a mother. There would be a superb play to be made about that transfiguration and that antithesis’ (Il y a une femme coquette, bête, insupportable, vide, creuse: c’est la jeune fille; il y a un être grand, beau, dévoué: c’est cette jeune fille devenue mère. Il y aurait une pièce de théâtre superbe à faire de cette transfiguration et de cette antithèse). See Goncourt 1873, pp. 361-362.

26. For Paterson’s ‘Ninety-three’ – Dolorosa , see letter 305, n. 2.

27. A reference to the rescue of a mother and three children (not two, as Van Gogh writes) by Marquis de Lantenac, as described in Hugo’s Quatre-vingt-treize (book 4, chapter 3). For this historical novel, see letter 286, n. 9.

28. Charles Dickens, The haunted man and the ghost’s bargain (1848) is the last of Dickens’s Christmas books. Mr. Redlaw, a melancholy man, is lonely and isolated. His professional accomplishments can’t compensate for the betrayal of his life, when the woman he loved was wooed and wed by his best friend. One night, Redlaw is haunted by his own ghost, who agrees to strip him of his painful memories. The ghost causes everyone he meets to lose their bad memories too. This ‘gift’ causes havoc in a family of poor but loving villagers, because the loss of the memories of past pain robs them of the ability to empathize. The only person unaffected is a street urchin. Because the boy never has known kindness, he’s never developed a capacity for compassion. Redlaw begs the ghost to remove his curse. Only Milly, the wife of Redlaw’s servant can cure the villagers. At the end Redlaw regains his own memory when he forgives the man who wronged him.