1. Van Gogh may have meant one of the illustrations by George Housman Thomas for James Thomson, The seasons. London 1859, p. 206, engraved by William Luson Thomas. Ill. 1374 . The accompanying text includes the lines: ‘Heard solemn, goes the goblin-story round, / Till superstitious horror creeps o’er all’ Cf. also n. 3 below.

2. This print cannot be identified for certain. John Gilbert provided thousands of illustrations for The Illustrated London News; one was Uncle William’s Christmas presents in The Illustrated London News 29 (20 December 1856), p. 611. Ill. 874 .

3. It is unclear whether Van Gogh means that In der Kirche (In the church) is by Adam Oberländer: with the other two engravings the title is followed by ‘van’ (by) and the name of the artist, which is not the case here; furthermore, in the manuscript there is a large space between the name and the title. In der Kirche is in the estate, without the name of the artist, but (like those from Thomson’s book, see n. 1 above) engraved by William Luson Thomas, so it may be that Van Rappard sent this print. It comes from Allgemeine Illustrirte Zeitung. Über Land und Meer 23 (February 1870), p. 408. Ill. 1204 (t*775).

4. For the painting Tile painters that Van Rappard wanted to submit for the International Exhibition in Amsterdam, see letter 331, n. 14.

5. As far as is known, none of these experiments was preserved. See cat. Amsterdam 1996, p. 194.

6. This drawing of an orphan man next to a coffin is fortunately not known.

7. A quire consists of 24 or 25 folded sheets of paper.