a. Means: ‘zwak’ (weak).

1. In June 1882 Van Gogh had been treated for venereal disease at the Burgergasthuis: see letters 237 ff.

2. This phrase occurs several times in the Gospels, cf. Matt. 16:25 among others.

3. For Van Rappard’s work on the large decoration The muse of history (1882), cf. letter 284, n. 6.

b. Read: ‘kruit’ (ammunition).

4. Saying.

5. Possibly an allusion to Eccl. 3:1-8, ‘To everything there is a season’.

6. The words ‘which... were’ were added later. Where Van Gogh writes ‘&c’ at the end of the saying, the original was ‘they pissed a pee’ (WNT). Quoted earlier in letter 276.

7. This means that Van Gogh wrote a (lost) letter to Van Rappard asking for financial help; Vincent wrote to Theo that he would do so (see letter 340 and cf. letter 342).

8. Which Maris (Jacob, Matthijs or Willem) Van Gogh means here is impossible to say for sure.

9. Van Gogh spoke earlier of ‘Monday morning-like sobriety’; in that context it was probably an allusion to a passage in Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (see letter 274, n. 4).

10. Howard Pyle, The first visit of William Penn to America – A conference with the colonists, engraved by Eugène Froment, in The Graphic 27 (14 April 1883), pp. 392-393 published shortly before. Ill. 1225

.

It is understandable that Van Gogh likens the scene, which is set in 1672 according to the inscription, to the work of the seventeenth-century painter Gerard ter Borch (the younger), who worked in a similar style. The name Ter Borch was also sometimes spelt Terburg, as in French publications.

Although Van Gogh also mentions Nicolaas Keijzer here, he probably does not mean the little known seventeenth-century Flemish painter Nicolaes de Keyser, but the Dutch painter Thomas de Keyser, who was also mentioned in letter 155. The latter is known for his portraiture, a genre in which Gerard ter Borch also worked. There were portraits by both in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

11. Edward R. King, The workman’s train, engraved by Eugène Froment, in The Illustrated London News 82 (14 April 1883), p. 373. There are two copies in the estate. Ill. 1012

(t*103 and t*581).

12. Van Gogh very probably subscribed to the series published in 1883 by F.-G. Dumas (artistic director of Paris Illustré and publisher of illustrated Salon catalogues among other things). The Catalogue illustré officiel de la section des Beaux-Arts de L’Exposition Universelle d’Amsterdam 1883 carried an advertisement for it: ‘From 1st May 1883, Paris Illustré – Twelve numbers per year, illustrated with engravings in several colours ... One franc per number’ (A dater du 1er mai 1883 Paris Illustré – Douze numéros par an illustrés de gravures en plusieurs tons ... Un franc le numéro). The first number covered the Salon of 1883. The following issues dealt with such subjects as ‘Villégiature et bains de mer’ (Holidays and bathing) and ‘Cercles et aquarellistes’ (Circles and watercolourists). Dumas’s normal illustrated Salon catalogue of 1883 cost 3.50 francs. Cf. also letter 342, n. 10.