1. Van Gogh must have read the announcement about it in L’Intransigeant of Friday, 25 May 1888 (p. 3, in the ‘Beaux-Arts’ column under the heading ‘Nouvelles Artistiques’): ‘An exhibition of paintings by Messrs Caillebotte, Eugène Boudoin, J.L. Brown, Lepine, Pissaro [sic], Renoir, Sisley and Whistler opens tomorrow, Thursday, [should read Saturday] at the Durand-Ruel Gallery, 11 rue Le Peletier, and continues until 25 June’ (‘Une exposition de tableaux de MM. Caillebotte, Eugène Boudoin, J.L. Brown, Lepine, Pissaro [sic], Renoir, Sisley, Whistler, s’ouvrira demain jeudi dans la galerie Durand-Ruel, 11, rue Le Peletier, pour se continuer jusqu’au 25 juin’). A similar announcement in the Moniteur des Arts of 29 May 1888 (p. 181) confirms that the exhibition ran from Saturday, 26 May to 25 June. This notice also mentions work by Berthe Morisot. See also exhib. cat. London 1979, p. 282 and Dorn 1990, p. 552.

There were six works by Gustave Caillebotte in the exhibition; they were Garden (Jardin) (present whereabouts unknown), A small branch of the Seine, Argenteuil (Petit bras de la Seine à Argenteuil), 1888 (Texas, M. Trammell Crow), Yellow and pink field (Champ jaune et rose) (private collection), Rowers (Canotiers) (present whereabouts unknown), Yellow field (Champ jaune), 1883 (present whereabouts unknown) and By the waterside (Au bord de l’eau) (present whereabouts unknown). See Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte. Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels. Paris 1994, p. 283 and cat. nos. 267, 291, 381.

2. There are five drawings of the area described by Van Gogh that date from this period: The plain of La Crau (F 1419 / JH 1430

), Landscape with a tree in the foreground (F 1418 / JH 1431

), View from Montmajour (F 1448 / JH 1432

), Landscape with Arles in the background (F 1475 / JH 1435

) and Heath (F 1493 / JH 1436

The rocky hill is Montmajour, with the twelfth-century abbey of the same name. The plain that Van Gogh calls the Crau was actually the Trébon. This area some 5 km to the north-east of Arles lies on either side of the road to Tarascon, bordered on one side by the Rhône and on the other by Fontvieille and Tarascon. The Crau is the region to the south-east of Arles. See Fernand Benoît, Histoire municipale d’Arles. Marseille 1935, p. 70.

3. The small mountain range about 25 km to the north-east of Arles is known as the Alpilles, also written at this time as ‘Alpines’. See for Alphonse Daudet’s Tartarin sur les Alpes: letter 583, n. 9. P.C.A. stands for ‘Président du Club des Alpines’. See Daudet 1986-1994, vol. 3, p. 567 (chapter 2). Cf. Dorn 1990, p. 326 (n. 127).

4. Montmajour (F 1423 / JH 1433

) and The ruins of Montmajour (F 1417 / JH 1434

5. See for this exhibition: letter 611, n. 5.

6. One of the drawings Mourier-Petersen took with him was probably The Langlois bridge (F 1470 / JH 1377

); see letter 615, n. 8. It is not possible to identify the other one.

7. See for Mourier-Petersen’s ‘nervous condition’: letter 610, n. 3.

8. Van Gogh’s assumption was wrong; Mourier-Petersen had given up his medical studies in 1880 and had been working as an artist ever since. Cf. letter 611, n. 8.

a. Read: ‘habiter’.

9. Van Gogh is most probably referring to Carel Eliza van der Sande Lacoste, who signed out of the register in Dordrecht to go to Amsterdam on 29 October 1880 and returned to Dordrecht from Paris on 31 July 1885. Theo may therefore have known Lacoste from the time he was living in Paris or met him when he was visiting the city.

10. Van Gogh not infrequently made a mistake about the nationality of the Danish painter Mourier-Petersen (cf. letter 625).

11. Given the reference to Mourier-Petersen’s phlegm immediately afterwards, Van Gogh must be referring to the calm, unassuming character of the Japanese and Tahitians as Pierre Loti describes them in Madame Chrysanthème and Le mariage de Loti respectively. Van Gogh had read the latter book about two months previously. Cf.: ‘See these motionless and dreamy folk; see these silent, languid and idle groups underneath the great trees, who appear to live on the feeling of meditation alone’ (Voyez ces peuplades immobiles et rêveuses; – voyez au pied des grands arbres ces groupes silencieux, indolents et oisifs, qui semblent ne vivre que par le sentiment de la contemplation) (see Loti 1991, p. 69).