Theo had written to Gauguin on 13 November 1888: ‘I shall still be able to sell the dance of the little Breton girls, but there will be a small bit of retouching to be done. The little girl’s hand that comes to the edge of the frame assumes an importance that it does not seem to have when you see just the canvas. The collector would like you to alter the shape of this hand a little, without changing anything else in the painting. It doesn’t seem to me that that will be difficult for you, and and I am therefore sending you the canvas.’ (Je pourrai encore vendre la ronde de petites Bretonnes, mais il y aura une petite retouche à faire. La main de la petite fille qui vient au bord du cadre prend une importance qu’elle ne paraît pas avoir quand on ne voit que la toile. L’amateur voudrait que vous revoyiez un peu la forme de cette main sans autrement modifier quoi que ce soit dans le tableau. Il me semble que cela ne vous sera pas difficile & pour cela je vous envoie la toile). Gauguin answered by return post: ‘I shall deal with the painting to be retouched; the hand that touches the frame obviously assumes great importance, and I believed it was necessary to do it that way in order to balance the dance, which is in the shape of an S. But since these are the whims of a painter and not a collector, I shall try to remedy, or rather, attenuate it.’ (Je vais m’occuper du tableau à retoucher; evidemment la main qui arrive dans le cadre prend beaucoup d’importance et je la croyais necessaire ainsi pour équilibrer la danse qui a la forme d’un S. Mais comme ce sont des toquades de peintre en non d’amateur je tâcherai d’y remedier ou plutôt atténuer.) See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 280-282. On the changes Gauguin made to the canvas, see Wildenstein 2001, p. 414, cat. no. 296.

The sale did not go through. Theo finally sold the canvas in September 1889. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1999, p. 139.

Like Pickvance, we assume that Van Gogh means the ‘artists and friends of Theo’s who had seen the paintings he [= Vincent] had sent to Paris’ (see exhib. cat. New York 1984, p. 235). One naturally thinks first of Bernard, who had been back in Paris since about 10 November, and of Camille Pissarro, who had seen work from the first batch (see letter 676). Van Gogh could also be referring to the Paris art dealers Thomas and Bague, to whom he hoped to sell work (see letter 699).