1. See letter 669, n. 16, for Boch’s stay in the Borinage. Van Gogh addressed the letter care of ‘M. Moriau / Rue de la Station’ (see Additional details). This ‘Moriau’ was François Eugène Morriaux. He lived at 42 rue de la Station in Frameries, and had a tavern (AEM).

a. Also spelt ‘sclauneuses’.

2. When he died in 1895 the miner Joseph Quinez, born in Wasmes, was living in rue Royale in Wasmes; he was married to Amélie Thiébaut, with whom he had previously lived at number 39 rue de Louise (AEM).

3. The night café (F 463 / JH 1575 ).

4. The three no. 30 canvases of the park are The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 468 / JH 1578 ), Path in the public garden (F 470 / JH 1582 ) and a painting he had previously described as ‘a round cedar or cypress bush’ (689) and soon after this as ‘the garden with the round bush and the oleanders’ (694). The letter sketch The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F - / JH 1584) is after this painting, which is now lost.

5. Ploughed fields (‘The furrows’) (F 574 / JH 1586 ).

6. The Yellow House (‘The street’) (F 464 / JH 1589 ).

7. Café terrace at night (F 467 / JH 1580 ).

8. Starry night over the Rhône (F 474 / JH 1592 ).

9. For ‘barbotine’ see letter 663, n. 7.

10. Eugène Boch (‘The poet’) (F 462 / JH 1574 ) and Paul Eugène Milliet (‘The lover’) (F 473 / JH 1588 ).

11. The exchange with Boch occurred in June 1890; see letter 890.

b. Read: ‘dont’.

12. See letter 151, n. 2, for the Marcasse/Saint-Antoine mine.

13. See letter 151, n. 3, for the Agrappe coal mine.

14. The letter sketch Starry night over the Rhône (F - / JH 1594), after the painting of the same title (see n. 8 above). On the verso there are lines of writing that have been crossed out, a scrap of a letter to Paul Gauguin that was never sent. See RM16 and Jansen et al. 2000.

15. Aside from Café terrace at night (n. 7 above) and the two portraits (n. 10 above), which measure 80.7 x 65.3 cm, 60 x 45 cm and 60 x 49 cm respectively, all the paintings Van Gogh mentions are no. 30 canvases (roughly 92 x 73 cm).

16. Boch’s parents lived in La Louvière.

17. Anna Boch.

18. As we learn from letter 694, Van Gogh was working on The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595 ).