1. It is not clear exactly what Theo had written about. It was evidently a heavenly spot that he had visited. In letter 347 a landscape is mentioned, ‘a different kind of landscape from “le paradou”’ (ll. 112-113). In Emile Zola’s La faute de l’abbé Mouret (1875) ‘Le Paradou’ is an idyllic garden with the remains of an old villa; there is a detailed description in part 2, chapter 7 (see Zola 1960-1967, vol. 1, pp. 1345-1353). The garden and villa are located near the village of Artaud in the Midi, where Serge Mouret is working as a young priest. For ‘Le Paradou’, see also letters 347, 381 and 638.
2. Gen. 3:19. Millet had linked this biblical text to life as an artist: see letter 226, n. 2.
3. For this, see letter 342.
4. Anthon van Rappard, Old woman at the spinning wheel (private collection). Ill. 330 [330]. The painting measures 85 x 45 cm; the sketch is not known. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 86, cat. no. 107.
[330]
5. This charcoal drawing of a ward in the Institute for the Blind is not known. A watercolour of this subject from this period is Van Rappard’s Ward in the Institute for the Blind in Utrecht (Utrecht, Centraal Museum). See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 79, cat. no. 85.
6. This charcoal drawing is not known. The location may have been that depicted in one of the two drawings Silversmith workshop (Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet). See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 82, cat. nos. 94-95.
[508]
7. For Van Rappard’s Tile painters [332], shown at the International Exhibition in Amsterdam, see letter 331, n. 14. Two painted studies of it are known, Tile painters (Utrecht Centraal Museum) (Ill. 2098 [2098]) and Tile painters (private collection), as well as the watercolour Tile painters (Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen). Ill. 2099 [2099]. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 81, cat. nos. 90-92. Sketches for it are not known.
[332] [2098] [2099]
8. A watercolour of a village churchyard by Van Rappard is not known. Cf. in this connection the drawing Churchyard at Rolde of 1883 (Assen, Drents Museum). Cf. exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 83, cat. no. 98.
a. Means: ‘uitgaven’ (outgoings).
9. Van Rappard’s studio was in his parents’ house in Herenstraat in Utrecht. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 19.
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