3. In the afternoon of Sunday, 14 June a forest fire raged between Nuenen and Geldrop, according to the report in the Provinciale Noordbrabantsche en ’s-Hertogenbossche Courant of 18 June. Driek Dekkers, who was ten years old at the time, witnessed Van Gogh helping with the fire-fighting efforts until late into the evening. See exhib. cat. ’s-Hertogenbosch 1987, p. 95, and De Brouwer 1984, p. 92.

4. Van Gogh had set himself this goal as a result of what he had read in Gigoux’s Causeries sur l’artistes de mon temps. See letter 506.

5. See for Lhermitte’s The lovers (‘Idyll’)

: letter 502, n. 19.

6. Van Gogh got this from Mantz’s article ‘Le Salon i’; see letter 502, n. 10. Mantz writes: ‘They resolved, not without reason, to decorate the town halls, and they thought that several of the rooms in municipal buildings, particularly those for Marriages, might be improved by paintings. They also judged that the citizens would be delighted by the sight of rural things’ (On a résolu, non sans raison, de décorer les mairies, et l’on a pensé que plusieurs salles des édifices municipaux, particulièrement celle des Mariages, pourraient être embellies par des peintures. On a même jugé que les citadins seraient réjouis par le spectacle des choses rurales) (p. 1).

7. Theo had mentioned the painter Serret in an undated letter (of about 1 June 1885) to his mother: ‘I do so hope that Vincent will settle down eventually. One cannot expect him to become altogether like an ordinary person, but the best thing is just to let him do as he wants, and perhaps see the good in him. I showed his work again to an old painter (Serret’s his name) who has seen and experienced a great deal in his life and has a good heart and a clear head. He told me that he could see in his work that it was done by someone who had been working for a relatively short time, but he found a great deal that is good in it. He even said that if he kept on working and could manage to work out his idea, he held out the prospect that he would surpass Millet, who as you know was one of the greatest painters that ever was, in expression. But speaking of success with the public, he thought that that would go slowly, very slowly. But, he went on, if it might please him, tell him that he has my sympathy entirely. So we must wait and see, and if he produces good work, which great men think is good and admirable, try to forgive him his peculiarities in everyday life. I regard the money I give him as payment for his work and as such he earns it. Perhaps it will take a long time, but one day it will be valuable, only I wish it was soon so that people would regard him in a different light from the way they do now’ (FR b939).

We do not know whether Serret was a dealer as well as an artist – his name does not appear in Goupil’s sales ledgers.