1. As well as The cottage (F 83 / JH 777 ), which measures 64 x 78 cm, Vincent therefore sent another cottage of a similar size. Cottage and woman with a goat (F 90 / JH 823 ) and Cottage with peasant coming home (F 170 / JH 824 ), which measure 60 x 85 and 64 x 76 cm respectively, fit the bill, but they could also have been among the four that Van Gogh now says he has painted. He also made Village at sunset (F 190 / JH 492), which measures 57 x 82 cm.

2. Cf. the drawn figure studies mentioned in letter 512.

3. These were The potato eaters (F 82 / JH 764 ), The cottage (F 83 / JH 777 ) and The old church tower at Nuenen (‘The peasants’ churchyard’) (F 84 / JH 772 ), and probably Cottage (F 91 / JH 809 ), 35.5 x 67 cm; Cottage and a woman with a goat (F 90 / JH 823 ), which measures 60 x 85 cm, and Cottage with tumbledown barn and a stooping woman (F 1669 / JH 825 ), which measures 62 x 113. See cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 160-163, and n. 1.

4. In his ‘Etude des mouvements de l’art moderne et du beau caractériste’ Raffaëlli criticized the ‘vast canvases’ at the Salon (Catalogue illustré des oeuvres de Jean-François Raffaelli. Paris 1884, p. 35). Mantz had written in Le Temps about the large paintings at the Salon, which were intended as decorations for town halls (‘Le Salon i’, p. 1). In ‘Le Salon ii’, published in Le Temps of 17 May 1885, he wrote: ‘Our painters are criticized for giving their canvases exaggerated proportions’ (On reproche à nos peintres de donner à leurs toiles des dimensions exagérées) (p. 2). Theo had sent Vincent these articles (see for Raffaëlli: letter 512, n. 1 and for Mantz: letters 502 ff.).

5. Sensier writes that Millet did not receive any money when his mother died; he renounced his inheritance and only accepted the books and the bookcase that were passed down from father to son, together with a few more pieces of furniture. He gave his inheritance – a share in the house and the land – to one of his brothers, who continued to live in Gruchy, the village where their parents had lived. See Sensier 1881, pp. 149-153.

6. Van Gogh may have known the anecdote about the inheritance of the French painter and sculptor Paul Dubois from the article ‘Paul Dubois’ by Emile Bergerat (without page numbering) in Galerie Contemporaine, Littéraire, Artistique (1875). It says that Dubois, despite his success, was short of money and even had to broach his inheritance prematurely: ‘To subsidize his production costs, he had even had to make serious inroads into his inheritance’ (Il avait même été obligé, pour subvenir aux frais de sa production, d’entamer fortement son patrimoine). He managed to some extent to provide for his basic needs from the sale of reproductions of his popular statue Chanteur florentin (Florentine singer).

7. Van Gogh doubtless raised the issue of Millet’s and Dubois’ inheritances because he himself had decided to give up his own share of their father’s estate: see letter 506.

a. A span is the distance between the tips of the thumb and little finger on one hand, when spread as wide as possible, in other words about 20 cm.

8. ‘A total of ten painted figure studies are known from this period. Most of the men and women depicted are indeed about the size of a span’. Cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 160-163, cat. no. 29, with an overview of these works.