1. Max Liebermann, Die grosse Bleiche – Die Rasenbleiche (Bleaching field at Zweeloo), 1883 (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum). Ill. 1063

. The version now known looks somewhat different from when the painting was shown at the Salon in 1883 because Liebermann subsequently painted over the foreground. A print in the Catalogue illustré du Salon shows the earlier version, with a girl in the foreground. See Eberle 1995, pp. 241-243 (cat. 1883/1) and cf. exhib. cat. Paris 1883, p. 139, no. 1527.

2. We do not know when Frans ter Meulen was in Drenthe (cf. letter 256); Julius van de Sande Bakhuyzen was there in 1882-1883. See exhib. cat. Assen 1997, pp. 59, 61.

3. The trip, in the company of the lodging-house keeper Scholte, who was going to the fair in Assen, must have been on 1 November. See Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, p. 180.

4. Van Gogh had taken the barge from Hoogeveen to Nieuw-Amsterdam.

5. This is the church tower of Sleen, which after a fire in 1867 was without a spire until 1909. See Kuipers 1990, pp. 38-39.

6. It is not possible to say with certainty which drawing is meant here. It may have been Landscape with trees (F 902a / JH 10) – perhaps it depicts Jan and Lammechien Mensingh’s apple orchard. See Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, pp. 234-238. Michael Zimmermann, however, believes that Van Gogh is referring to Woman spreading out laundry on a field (F 1087 / JH 200); see Zimmermann 2002, pp. 96-97; cf. Annet Tellegen, ‘Vincent van Goghs appelboomgaard te Zweelo’ (Vincent van Gogh’s apple orchard in Zweeloo), Bulletin Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen 18-1 (1967), pp. 2-7, and Heenk 1995, pp. 88, 95.

7. This may be Brion’s Le sixième jour de la création (The sixth day of creation), which Goupil published as a reproduction in the Galerie Photographique series, no. 530 (Bordeaux, Musée Goupil). Ill. 644

. However, the scene bears little resemblance to Van Gogh’s description of the Drenthe landscape. In view of the difference in title and the fact that Van Gogh is thinking first and foremost of the landscape in Brion’s painting – the landscape is secondary in Le sixième jour de la création – there is reason to doubt this identification. If the print is nonetheless the one he means, the connection may lie in Van Gogh’s experience, which he sees symbolized in Brion’s biblical scene.

8. The little church in Zweeloo is the present-day Reformed Church on the outskirts of the village.

9. See for Millet’s painting The church at Gréville , situated by the sea: letter 36, n. 9; for the Musée du Luxembourg: letter 9, n. 7.

10. Cf. for this scene Van Gogh’s drawing Shepherd with flock near a little church at Zweeloo (F 877 / JH 423

11. The drawing of the old woman spinning is not known. It is uncertain which inn is being described here. Dijk and Van der Sluis think that Van Gogh stopped at Jan Mensingh’s inn, whereas Kuipers asserts that he called at the inn owned by Jannes Oldenhuizing Abrahamy and that the ‘little old woman at the spinning wheel’ was Aaltien Oldenhuizing Abrahamy. See Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, pp. 172-173, 263-264; and Kuipers 1990, p. 43.

12. This sheepfold stood at an angle behind Henderikus Lucaszn. Abrahamy’s farmhouse; the local shepherd at the time was Harm Jansen. See Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, pp. 232-233.