2. Van Gogh could have based this statement on Silvestre’s Documents nouveaux: ‘Yes, Delacroix was a great worker. He would get up at seven in the morning and quickly get down to work until three in the afternoon without taking anything at all to eat, in order to keep his mind lighter and more supple. He would sometimes return, if hunger drove him, to his original habit, which was to swallow a crust of bread and two fingers of wine’ (Oui, Delacroix fut un grand travailleur. Il se levait sur les sept heures du matin et se mettait vite à l’oeuvre jusqu’à trois heures du soir sans prendre la moindre nourriture, afin de garder son esprit plus souple et plus léger. Il revenait parfois, la faim le poussant, à sa première habitude qui fut d’avaler une croûte de pain et deux doigts de vin) (Ed Paris 1864, p. 44).

3. Sensier had already emphasized the image of Millet as a peasant among peasants in his Salon reviews. In La vie et l’oeuvre de J.-F. Millet Sensier calls him a ‘peasant’ and ‘true peasant’ a number of times. He also remarks that in Barbizon Millet ‘became a peasant again’, and quotes a letter in which Millet says of himself: ‘I am a peasant through and through’ (‘Je suis paysan paysan’). See Sensier 1881, pp. 37, 60, 66, 116, 181, 188, 194, 219, 302. See also Parsons and McWilliam 1984, pp. 40, 43.

4. Van Gogh is referring to the following description: ‘It was difficult to portray this cemetery with a more truthful feeling of desolation. A bleak, arid patch of ground, enclosed by grey walls, on which the torrid July sun casts its consuming light. Not a single flower on the bare graves, not a shrub to shelter them nor a cypress to protect them. Powdery stones giving life, through their fissures, to a few wild plants, through the midst of which run small lizards. Over there, in the corner, a gravedigger, his foot resting on his spade, for he has just dug a grave, wiping his brow. Here and there, a few clédas [wooden hurdles] that the mistral and the March rain have knocked down, forgotten in this lonely place. (Ce cimetière, il était difficile de le rendre avec un sentiment plus vrai de désolation. Un pan de terre morne, aride, que clôturent des murailles grises et sur lequel le soleil torride de juillet jette sa dévorante lumière. Nulle fleur sur les tombes nues, pas un arbuste qui les abrite, pas un cyprès qui les protège. Des pierres poudreuses donnant naissance, à travers leurs fissures, à quelques herbes sauvages au milieu desquelles courent de petits lézards. Là-bas, dans le coin, un fossoyeur, le pied sur sa bêche, car il vient de creuser une fosse, et s’épongeant le front. Çà et là des clédas que le mistral et la pluie de mars ont bouleversés dans l’oubli de cette solitude.) Nandyfer, ‘Chronique’, Le Petit Provençal. Journal Politique Quotidien, 29 April 1889. See Martin Bailey, ‘Van Gogh et Marseille. L’impossible voyage’. Exhib. cat. Van Gogh Monticelli. Marseille (Centre de la Vieille Charité), 2008-2009. Marseille 2008, pp. 129-135. The artist from Marseille who had committed suicide (Van Gogh mentions him later in the letter) is identified in the article with his initial: ‘D...’.

5. For the philosopher Pangloss from Voltaire’s Candide, see letter 568, n. 3.

6. For Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pécuchet, see letter 669, n. 9.

a. Read: ‘derechef’.

7. For Mirbeau’s article ‘Claude Monet’, see letter 754, n. 7. The second article mentioned is M.F. [Marcel Fouquier], ‘Petites expositions. Exposition Cl. Monet, un maître paysagiste’, Le XIXe Siècle (6 March 1889). See Wildenstein 1996, vol. 4, p. 1002.

8. Letter 779 reveals that this was The bedroom (F 482 / JH 1608

). Vincent wrote that it was damaged and asked Theo to send it back so that he could make a repetition of it.

9. It is not known which other paintings were damaged by dampness.

10. The flooding of the Rhône in Arles was a recurring problem. Local newspapers report that it was discussed frequently at council meetings.

11. Regarding Bruyas and his bequest to the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, see letter 726, n. 1. The ‘deeply saddened face’ is seen in 17 portraits of Bruyas in the collection.

12. For Puvis de Chavannes’s Hope , see letter 611, n. 11.

13. On Delacroix’s Daniel in the lions’ den , see letter 726, n. 21.

14. For Delacroix’s Algerian women in their apartments , see letter 726, n. 20.

15. Eugène Delacroix’s Algerian women in their apartments, 1847-1849 (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Ill. 2282

16. In 1888 the Musée Fabre owned 9 paintings by Cabanel, 13 by Courbet and 1 by Giraud. See cat. Montpellier 1926, pp. 122-126, 130-136, 173.

17. Perhaps an allusion to Richepin’s volume of poetry Les blasphèmes (1884), though nowhere in that book does Richepin send painters to the madhouse.

b. Read: ‘cas où j’y vais’.

c. Read: ‘douteux’.

18. For this quotation from Voltaire’s Candide, see letter 568, 3.

19. The night café (F 463 / JH 1575

20. The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595

21. The red vineyard (F 495 / JH 1626

22. The bedroom (F 482 / JH 1608

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

24. Van Gogh is referring to Ploughed field with a tree-trunk (‘The furrows’) (F 573 / JH 1618

), which he earlier described as a ‘study of ploughed field with the stump of an old yew’ (letter 714). Another possibility is Sower (F 494 / JH 1617

), the composition of which is more related to Ploughed fields, though in the same letter Van Gogh called that work a ‘study of a sower’. After ‘ditto’ Van Gogh crossed out ‘portrait de Roulin’ (portrait of Roulin).

25. Eugène Boch (‘The poet’) (F 462 / JH 1574

26. For Laval’s Self-portrait , see letter 719, n. 2.

27. For Gauguin’s Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’ , see letter 692, n. 1.

28. For Bernard’s Self-portrait with portrait of Gauguin , see letter 692, n. 1.

29. Van Gogh had made four paintings of the Alyscamps: F 568 / JH 1622

, F 569 / JH 1623, F 487 / JH 1621

and F 486 / JH 1620

. Only one of them can be traced with certainty to the family estate: The Alyscamps (‘Leaf-fall’) (F 487 / JH 1621

). His list contains two canvases of the Alyscamps, and it is plausible that he also sent F 486 / JH 1620

, which had been hanging in Gauguin’s room together with F 487 (see letter 716). These two paintings were part of the decoration, as were a number of other works which he here describes as ‘worthy of being put on stretching frames’.

Feilchenfeldt and cat. Otterlo 2003 assumed, however, that F 486 remained with the Ginoux family in Arles and that they sold it to Vollard. See Feilchenfeldt 2005, pp. 292, 297 and cat. Otterlo 2003, p. 253. According to Feilchenfeldt, F 568 / JH 1622

and F 569 / JH 1623 were also sold by the Ginouxs to Vollard. The present letter reveals, however, that Van Gogh definitely sent two paintings of the Alyscamps to Theo, so the Ginouxs could have had two at the most. The Vollard archives contain only two references to a painting of the Alyscamps, which possibly allude to one and the same work: the payment of 70.70 francs to Ginoux for a ‘canvas by Van Gogh “Alyscamps”’ (toile de Van Gogh “alyscamps”) and the sum of 310 francs, received from Denys Cochin for ‘Van Gogh alyscamps’ (Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Documentation, Archives Vollard, MS 421).

By contrast, Dorn thought that Van Gogh sent all four paintings of the Alyscamps to Theo, but that the two canvases in this list of works ‘worthy of being put on stretching frames’ were F 568 / JH 1622

and F 569 / JH 1623. He assumed, in fact, that Van Gogh sent F 486

and F 487

on their stretching frames, as he did the canvases of sunflowers that had also hung in Gauguin’s room and already had frames made of strips of wood (see letter 776). See Dorn 1990, p. 442. That is not necessarily the case, however, because Van Gogh’s list contains other works that were hanging, framed, in the Yellow House (including F 462

, F 475

, F 574

and the painting of the park; see n. 30).

30. This painting of the park (‘the poet’s garden’) is no longer known. For the composition, see the drawing The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 1465 / JH 1583) and the letter sketch in letter 693.

31. The public garden with a couple strolling (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 479 / JH 1601

32. Van Gogh no doubt found Sunflowers in a vase (F 455 / JH 1668

) and F 457 / JH 1666

‘worthy of being put on stretching frames’ (l. 158). The first two versions, F 456 / JH 1561

and F 454 / JH 1562

, were indeed in the consignment but cannot be the paintings in question because they were already framed with strips of wood and thus already on stretching frames (see letter 776). Sunflowers in a vase (F 458 / JH 1667

) must have been sent on a stretching frame too; Van Gogh had enlarged the composition by adding a strip of wood to the canvas (see Hendriks et al. 2019). This means that the painting could not be taken off the stretching frame anymore. The consignment probably also included F 453 / JH 1559

and F 459 / JH 1560

; see letter 774, n. 7.

33. The only painting in which ‘scabious’ are possibly depicted is Wild flowers in a majolica jug (F 600 / JH 1424

). Taking into account that the blue must originally have been more purple, the flowers in the middle could be scabious (presumably Centaurium scabiosa). However, Van Gogh had already painted F 600 in May 1888, in which case he kept it for a year before sending it. Another possibility is that the painting mentioned here is no longer known.