1. From early July to the end of September Van Rappard and his friend L.W.R. Wenckebach went on a walking tour across the Hondsrug in Drenthe. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 88.
2. This painting of a fish market is not known.
3. Antoon Hermans.
4. The sketch Sower (F 1143 / JH 509 [2478]).
[2478]
5. The sketch Ploughman (F 1142 / JH 512 [2481]).
[2481]
6. This design is only known as letter sketch Wheat harvest (F - / JH 508).
[137]
7. The sketch Planting potatoes (F 1141 / JH 510 [2479]).
[2479]
8. The sketch of this shepherd is not known.
9. The sketch Ox-cart in the snow (F 1144 / JH 511 [2480]).
[2480]
10. This ploughman is under Cottage with tumbledown barn and a stooping woman (F 1669 / JH 825 [3024]), which measures 62 x 113 cm (see letter 453, n. 10). Later Van Gogh adapted the composition in the new version Ploughman and potato reaper (F 172 / JH 514 [2483]), see letter 466, n. 1.
[3024] [2483]
11. The painted study of a sower is not known.
12. Shepherd with flock of sheep (F 42 / JH 517 [2485]); this measures 67 x 126 cm.
[2485]
13. This painted study of a wheat harvest is not known.
14. This painted study of an oxcart in winter is not known.
15. These two works must have been made after Van Rappard’s visit – which lasted from about 17 to about 27 May (letter 447) – and we can also infer that they must have been finished for some weeks, since Van Gogh is not sure whether or not he had already written to Van Rappard about them. The painting of a woman spinning must have been the same one he referred to in letters 449 ff.
The weaver he means was probably Weaver near an open window (F 24 / JH 500 [2472]) or Weaver, interior with three small windows (F 37 / JH 501 [2473]), which he wrote about in letters 451 and 452.
[2472] [2473]
16. Vincent got Sensier’s La vie et l’oeuvre de J.F. Millet (1881) either from Theo (during his visit to Nuenen) or from Hermans (with whom he had a great deal of contact at this time). On the book: letter 210, n. 3.
17. Charles Blanc, Grammaire des arts du dessin, architecture, sculpture, peinture. Paris 1867. We consulted the second edition (Blanc 1870). Van Gogh refers to a note in Les artistes de mon temps, where Blanc talks of the colours in Delacroix and then refers to his Grammaire (Blanc 1876, p. 65). In April 1885 Van Gogh copied out this page, including the reference, for Theo (letter 494). The Grammaire contains wide-ranging practical and theoretical information about the arts it deals with.
18. See for Vosmaer’s Eene studie over het schoone en de kunst: letter 452, n. 5.
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