1. Van Gogh may be referring to the wood engraving after Léon Augustin Lhermitte’s painting L’aïeule (dit à tort: la vieille femme) (The grandmother (wrongly called: The old woman) of 1880 (Ghent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten), engraved by Auguste Trichon, in L’Univers Illustré 23 (9 October 1880), p. 648. Ill. 220 . Cf. Le Pelley Fonteny 1991, pp. 95, 99, cat. no. 26.

2. For this review, see letter 308 of 5 February 1883.

3. This drawing of a digger is not known.

4. Gen. 3:19. Millet had linked this biblical text with life as an artist: see letter 226, n. 2.

5. This drawing of a woman with a spade is not known; it is first mentioned in letter 331, where Van Gogh inserted a sketch after the drawing.

6. Jan Frederik van Deventer lived at Schenkweg 88, thus close to Van Gogh (GAH, Civil registration 1880-1895).

7. In November-December 1882 Van Gogh had had a number of lithographs printed by Smulders; see letters 281 ff.

8. Emile Louis Vernier made numerous lithographs after the works of Millet, Corot and Daubigny. For an overview, see Béraldi 1885-1892, vol. 12, pp. 225-227. For Vernier’s lithographs after Corot, see also letter 3, n. 4.

9. The lithographs by Karl Bodmer mentioned are Au bas Bréau. Forêt de Fontainebleau (lithograph, chez Mouilleron) (At Bas-Bréau. Forest of Fontainebleau) and Combat de cerfs. Forêt de Fontainebleau (lithograph, chez Jourdan et Barbot) (Stags fighting. Forest of Fontainebleau), after the paintings at the Salons of 1859 and 1861 (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des Estampes). Ill. 598 and Ill. 599 .

10. Karl Bodmer did various illustrations for L’Illustration and Le Monde Illustré.

a. Means: ‘werkeloos afwachten’ (idly waiting).

11. Cf. Hos. 8:7.

12. Victor Hugo’s novel Les misérables (1862) tells the story of the ex-prisoner Jean Valjean against a historical background (from the Restoration to the uprisings in 1832-1834). Valjean is inwardly chastened through remorse and sacrifice. At the same time the book is an indictment of contemporary French society in which Hugo takes up the cause of the oppressed. Cf. also letter 692, n. 3.

13. In Les misérables the poor peasant bishop Bienvenu Myriel is a symbol of Christian charity and mercy. It is he who offers Valjean a refuge and puts him on the right path when he comes out of prison.

14. Since the first, illustrated, edition of Les misérables in 1862 there have been various reprints, often illustrated, such as the Paris edition of 1870 whose title page reads: ‘Illustrés de deux cents dessins par Brion. Gravures de Yon et Perrichon’. The Paris edition [1879-1882], 5 vols, also has the Brion illustrations. See e.g. ‘M. Myriel’, ‘Jean Valjean’ and ‘Jean Valjean’ (vol. 1, pp. 9, 116-117). Ill. 2090 , Ill. 2093 and Ill. 2091 . Cf. Hugo 1951, p. xxi.

15. For this expression, cf. letter 288, n. 15.

16. Van Gogh speaks of a second drawing of a woman sewing in natural chalk which is not known. The drawing Woman sewing, with a girl (F 1072 / JH 341 ) is with natural chalk, but had already been mentioned in letters 327 and 330.

17. The plan to make a series of lithographs of workmen was discussed in letters 289 ff.

18. Various drawings of sowers are known, two of which Van Gogh evidently regarded as the most important; one is not known, the other is probably Sower (F 852 / JH 275 ). Cf. letter 291, nn. 6 and 8.

19. This drawing of a mower is not known.

20. This drawing of a woman at the washtub is not known.

21. This drawing of a woman miner is not known.

22. Van Gogh probably means the drawing of a woman sewing already mentioned; other drawings with this subject are Sien, sewing (F 1026 / JH 347) and Woman with a shawl, sewing (F 1033 / JH 353).

23. Van Gogh did various drawings of diggers.

24. For the (not known) drawing of a woman with spade, see n. 5 above.

25. Van Gogh frequently used the ‘orphan man’ as a model. If the fact that some drawings were used to make lithographs implies that Van Gogh attached a certain value to them, then here he may have in mind Old man with a stick (F 962 / JH 212 ) or Old man drinking coffee (F 996a / JH 264 ) – or the corresponding lithographs. Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland often modelled for Van Gogh. It may also be that the drawings referred to have been lost.

26. Prayer before the meal (F 1002 / JH 281 ), drawing; see letter 294, n. 3.

27. This drawing of a man with wheelbarrow is not known.

28. For The Tile Club, see letter 295, n. 2. In the Christmas Number of Harper’s Weekly of 1882 there were various contributions by members of this group of artists, who had had themselves depicted shortly before in a print after a drawing by Charles Stanley Reinhart, The Tile Club abroad, in Harper’s Weekly 26 (25 November 1882), p. 748. This engraving is in the estate. Below one of the twelve humorous sketches it says ‘some very important members are left behind’. Ill. 2092 (t*248). The accompanying commentary says of them: ‘The Tile club is one of the pleasantest associations in New York. It is an informal society of artists, musicians and literary men, limited as to membership, but boundless as to hospitality and good-fellowship toward congenial spirits’ (p. 747). See also Pisano 1999, pp. 51-53.

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

30. Van Gogh may be referring here to the print after the painting Priscilla by Boughton, on the back of which he did the drawing Sower (F - / JH 44); see cat. Amsterdam 1996, p. 32 (n. 46), and Appendix 1, no. 1.1 (pp. 242-243). He knew Fine weather and By the water’s edge by Heilbuth (see letters 311 and 314).

31. Van Gogh must mean Abbey’s Christmas in Old Virginia : letter 304, n. 37.

32. Although Van Gogh wrote Henri Pille, this is a reference to Howard Pyle’s Christmas morning in Old New York, which is also mentioned in letter 346; see letter 279, n. 8.

33. An expression, also quoted in letter 331.

34. Cf. Song of Sol. 2:2.

b. Means: ‘verve’.

35. Emile Zola’s novel Au bonheur des dames, in the series Les Rougon-Macquart, appeared in 75 instalments in Gil Blas from 17 December 1882 to 1 March 1883, after which it was published in book form (Paris 1883). See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 3, pp. 387-803, 1667-1734. On the novel: letter 464, n. 2 ff.