1. Van Gogh had received a letter from Russell about a month before; he sent it on to Theo with letter 589.

2. In 1888 the American artist Dodge Macknight, who Van Gogh had met through Russell in Paris, spent some time in Fontvieille, a village 9 km to the north of Arles. On 19 April 1888 Macknight wrote to Eugène Boch and told him that he had seen Van Gogh in Arles. See exhib. cat. Pontoise 1994, pp. 80, 96 (n. 18). The Danish painter is Christian Mourier-Petersen.

3. Russell must have mentioned his impending departure in his letter; in the spring of 1888 he moved with his family to the Breton island Belle-Île. See Galbally 1977, p. 45.

4. See for this series: letter 597.

5. In the late autumn of 1886 Russell left Paris and set off on a six-month trip around Italy, during which he also went to Sicily. One of the studies of trees in blossom he made there is Almond trees and ruins on Sicily, c. 1887 (sale Christie, Manson & Woods, Australia, 6-7 June 1989, p. 71, no. 184).

6. See for the hoped-for exchange: letter 589, n. 5.

7. John Peter Russell, Fabian, c. 1887 (Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University) Ill. 1309 ; and Dodge Macknight (private collection). Ill. 1308 . Nothing is known about Fabian, the subject of the first work, except that he, like Russell and Van Gogh, had studied in Cormon’s studio in Paris, and that he and Van Gogh may have exchanged work (see letter 569, n. 13). It seems unlikely that he was the Spanish artist Fabian de Castro, as was suggested earlier. See cat. Amsterdam 2011.

8. This letter from Reid to Theo, which was also mentioned in letter 589, is not known.

a. Read ‘taken with’.

9. Reid had lived with the Van Gogh brothers in Paris for some time. See letter 578, n. 6.

b. Van Gogh wrote in French ‘pour votre gouverne’.

10. See for Reid and Monticelli letter 578, n. 3.

11. After his trip to Morocco in 1832 Delacroix painted predominantly ‘southern’ – African, Greek and Turkish – subjects, in which he applied his colour theories.

12. See for the concept ‘simultaneous contrast’: letter 536, n. 28.

13. The artists that Van Gogh counted among the Venetian School belonged – with the exception of Giovanni Bellini – to the Florentine School, which is known for its emphasis on line; the Venetian School, to which Bellini, Titian and Veronese are considered to belong, is known for its colourful qualities.

14. Van Gogh probably meant ‘properties’ (cf. the French ‘propriété’); the English ‘proprieties’ seems inappropriate here.