1. See for the contents of the little crate: letter 506, nn. 4-7. It emerges from the present letter that Van Gogh also added The old church tower at Nuenen (‘The peasants’ churchyard’) (F 84 / JH 772 ).

2. Victor Hugo died on 22 May 1885; on 31 May his body was placed under the Arc de Triomphe and on 1 June he was buried in the Panthéon, watched by large crowds. The newspapers and magazines devoted an extraordinary degree of attention to this story.

3. The cottage (F 83 / JH 777 ).

4. Van Gogh wrote this in letter 506.

5. Both Delaroche and Gérôme had become big names as a result of Goupil’s promotional activities.

6. See for Gérôme, The prisoner : letter 418, n. 1.

7. There were two versions of Jean Léon Gérôme’s Le troupeau en marche (Le berger syrien à cheval) (The flock on the move (The Syrian shepherd on horseback)), 1865, but both have been lost. See Ackerman 1986, pp. 216-217, cat. nos. 153-154. The Berger syrien was no. 357 in Goupil’s series ‘Galerie Photographique’. Ill. 128 .

a. Means: ‘het kader, de context’ (the frame of reference, the context).

b. Read: ‘en dat niet alleen’ (and not only that).

8. Most probably an allusion to Bunyan: see letter 407, n. 4.

9. This peasant boy was Driek Dekkers. See De Brouwer 1984, pp. 92, 109.

10. There are several eyewitness accounts by boys whom Van Gogh paid to get bird’s nests for him at this time, including those of the said Driek Dekkers and Piet van Hoorn. Kerssemakers and Vincent’s sister Elisabeth remembered the nest collection – wren’s nests were rare. See De Brouwer 1984, pp. 109-112, and cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 198-203, cat. nos. 38-39.

11. Karl Bodmer made numerous depictions of birds in and around their nests, but not of individual bird’s nests. Hector Giacomelli, though, did. His illustrations appeared in Jules Michelet, L’oiseau. Paris 1881. See cat. Amsterdam 1999, p. 201.

12. The old church tower at Nuenen (‘The peasants’ churchyard’) (F 84 / JH 772 ) and The cottage (F 83 / JH 777 ).

13. Traces of this earlier version can be seen on an X-ray photograph of The old church tower at Nuenen (‘The peasants’ churchyard’) (F 84 / JH 772 ). See cat. Amsterdam 1999, p. 157.

c. Variant of ‘korte metten maken’.

14. This shepherd can be seen on an X-ray photograph under The cottage (F 83 / JH 777 ). Ill. 2149 . See cat. Amsterdam 1999, p. 148.

15. A reference to the quarrel that had blown up when Theo described Vincent’s work as Michel imitations: see letter 432.

16. Van Gogh means ‘ter plekke zijn’ (being on the spot), that is to say near the cottage he just mentioned (ll. 88-89).