1. This was Theo’s letter 766.

2. Vincent wrote this to Willemien in letter 764.

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

4. Theo had written about Puvis de Chavannes and Degas (not about Delacroix, as Vincent writes here). See letter 766.

5. Van Gogh is referring to the second series of pen drawings that he made of Montmajour, in the first half of July 1888. See letter 639 and cat. Amsterdam 2007, pp. 135-146.

6. Weeping tree on a lawn (F 1468 / JH 1498 ).

a. Read: ‘quelques que soient les circonstances dans lesquelles’.

7. The philosopher Pangloss is a character in Voltaire’s Candide. Van Gogh is alluding here to Pangloss’s cheerfully naive idea that ‘all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’ (tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes). See letter 568, n. 3.

b. ‘tout à fait’ (completely) is to be taken as modifying ‘oublier’ (forget), not ‘blaguer’ (jest).

8. The information subsequently given by Van Gogh about paintings that were exhibited at the 1889 Salon was taken from the article ‘Le Salon. Premier article’ (The Salon. First article) by Edmond Jacques in L’Intransigeant of 1 May 1889, pp. 1-2. Van Gogh refers to a passage that discusses two works by Maurice Lobre: ‘They are modest interiors, with a fragrance of intimacy, in a delightful key. The green sitting room, decorated with green pots, darkened by green curtains, into which a faint light slips through a half-open door, is an exquisitely delicate little jewel. The girl at luncheon is also very charming, but it does not have the same unity and does not please the eye to the same degree.’ (Ce sont des intérieurs modestes, tout parfumés d’intimité, dans une note charmante. Le salon vert, orné de poteries vertes, assombri de rideaux verts, où glisse une faible lumière par une porte entr’ouverte est un petit bijou d’une exquise délicatesse. Le déjeuner de la fille est fort charmant aussi; mais il n’a pas la même unité et ne flatte pas, au même point, le regard.) Van Gogh had apparently taken these to be a single painting of a woman in an interior. Both works bore the title Intérieur in the catalogue of the Salon. See exhib. cat. Paris 1889-2, p. 131, cat. nos. 1719-1720.

9. After mentioning a few mediocre portraits, Edmond Jacques goes on to say: ‘Mr Mathey is more incisive. His two young woman are interpreted with a most subtle art. And yet I prefer to them the etcher Rops, that masterpiece from last year.’ (M. Mathey est plus pénétrant. Ses deux jeunes femmes sont interprétées avec un art très subtil. Je leur préfère cependant l’aqua-fortiste Rops, cette oeuvre maîtresse de l’an dernier.) (p. 2) Apparently Van Gogh understood this as referring to a single work depicting two women, but Mathey exhibited two portraits: Portrait de Mme P.S. (Portrait of Madame P.S.) and Portrait de Mme W.S. (Portrait of Madame W.S.). See exhib. cat. Paris 1889-2, p. 139, cat. nos. 1826-1827.

10. Jacques writes: ‘So loud voices will be raised against Mr Besnard. I have no need to wait. It’s certain. It’s a matter of fact that Mr Besnard has painted no ordinary thing. His Sirène is a young woman with a strange expression, leaning against a tree, at the edge of a lake. It would be nothing, if that was all there was. But the artist has chosen that time of day when, through an effect of the sunset, the lake – it’s Lake Annecy – assumes a pink colour, absolutely pink. This phenomenon does not last long, but it is repeated regularly every evening. Every traveller has observed it. No matter! It’s the exception, and voices will be raised at it, I say so again. Ah well, I shall not raise mine, for two reasons: the first is that I am sure of the master’s sincerity; the second is that this piece, destined in advance to be the object of every exclamation, fashionable or otherwise, is admirably painted, and that there emanates from it a profound and disturbing poetry.’ (Aussi on criera fort contre M. Besnard. Je n’ai pas besoin d’attendre. C’est certain. Il est de fait que M. Bernard [sic] n’a pas peint une chose ordinaire. Sa Sirène, c’est une jeune fille à l’oeuil étrange, adossée à un arbre, sur le bord d’un lac. Ce ne serait rien, s’il n’y avait que cela. Mais l’artiste a choisi l’heure où, par un effet de coucher de soleil, le lac – c’est celui d’Annecy – prend une coloration rose, absolument rose. Ce phénomène dure peu, mais il se renouvelle régulièrement chaque soir. Tous les voyageurs l’ont observé. N’importe! c’est l’exception, et l’on criera, je le repète. Eh bien, moi, je ne crierai pas pour deux motifs: le premier, c’est que je suis sûr de la sincérité du maître; le second, c’est que ce morceau, voué d’avance à toutes les exclamations boulevardières et autres, est admirablement peint, et qu’il s’en dégage un poésie profonde et troublante.)

11. The works exhibited by Anders Zorn at the Salon were A l’air; – Suède (Out of doors – Sweden) and Portrait de Mme R. (Portrait of Madame R.) See exhib. cat. Paris 1889-2, p. 210, nos. 2765-2766.

12. Charles Carolus-Duran, Bacchus (present whereabouts unknown). See exhib. cat. Paris 1889-2, p. 39, no. 484. An engraving after this by Clément Edouard Bellenger appeared in L’Illustration. Le Salon de 1889 (27 April 1889), pp. 350-351. Ill. 678 . In his review of the Salon, Jacques called the work ‘banal’.

13. Charles Carolus-Duran, Lady with a glove (Mrs Carolus-Duran), 1869 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay). Ill. 677 . Van Gogh no doubt associated this work with Bel-ami because of its sophistication.

14. For Maupassant’s Bel-ami, see letter 568, n. 11.

15. The era of Napoleon iii, whose nickname was ‘Badinguet’. Some think that this name can be traced to a caption on a lithograph by Gavarni, which mentions a certain Eugénie who is ‘the old woman of Badinguet’ (l’ancienne à Badinguet). The more likely explanation is that the name refers to Louis Napoleon’s escape from the Fort of Ham (1846) wearing the clothes of the mason Badinguet.

16. After ‘qu’on ne’ Van Gogh crossed out ‘me deïfie’.

17. He wrote this in ll. 110-112.

18. Adolphe Jourdan had died on 22 February 1889 in Nîmes, a city not far from Avignon.

19. ‘Monorou’ must refer to the double page Portrait of Ousoukoumo (‘Bright Clouds’), described as ‘a celebrated beauty of Yédo at the beginning of the 17th century’ (‘beauté célèbre de Yédo au commencement du xviie siecle’, since he writes ‘from the same album’ (namely the one with the ‘Study of grasses’). The caption reads ‘Kakémono. School of Moronobou. End of 17th century. Engraved and printed by Gillot’ (Kakémono. – École de Moronobou. Fin du xviie siècle. Grav. Impr. par Gillot). The engraver is probably Eugène Louis Gillot Ill. 2289 . See Le Japon Artistique, no. 2 (June 1888), unnumbered (before DH and after AA – in the luxury edition printed on Japan paper, numbered FA, but appearing there without a caption). This Kakémono was done by Ando Kaïghetsudo, a pupil of Hishigava Moronobou. Van Gogh misspelled the name of the artist and speaks of ‘une mandarine’, a non-existant feminine form of ‘mandarin’ (a Chinese official). Cf. also letter 686, n. 11 and Roskill 1970-1, pp. 82-83. With thanks to Tsukasa Kōdera.

20. For the print Study of grass , see letter 686, n. 11.

21. For Delacroix’s Pietà , see letter 686, n. 3.

22. Delacroix made two paintings of The Good Samaritan: one dating from 1849-1851 (private collection) and one from 1852 (London, Victoria and Albert Museum). The lithograph by Jules Joseph Augustin Laurens, which Van Gogh owned, is based on the first version, in which the injured man is lifted off his horse. See Johnson 1981-1989, vol. 3, pp. 224-225, 229, cat. nos. 437, 446. Van Gogh’s copy, to which he applied a grid to aid him in copying it, has been preserved (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 2290 . (t*139) The painting he made after it is The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix) (F 633 / JH 1974 ) of May 1890.

23. For Meissonier’s The reader , engraved by Jacquemart, see letter 686, n. 7.

24. These were most likely The courtyard of the hospital (F 1467 / JH 1688 ) and the drawing which Van Gogh had made that day, Weeping tree on a lawn (F 1468 / JH 1498 ). They measure 49 x 61.5 cm and 45.5 x 59 cm, respectively.

25. In the novel Le médecin de campagne (1833), Honoré de Balzac expressed his own social, political and religious views. Dr Benassis, a paragon of human kindness, has turned a village into a model community, but he tells the army commander Genestas the underlying reason for his good works: his attempt to forget an unhappy love affair.

c. Read: ‘distrait’.

26. The two women Van Gogh refers to are the portraits of Augustine Roulin and Marie Ginoux. The consignment most likely contained four versions of Augustine Roulin (‘La berceuse’), F 504 / JH 1655 , F 506 / JH 1670 , F 507 / JH 1672 and F 508 / JH 1671 (see letter 774, n. 2), as well as Marie Ginoux (‘The Arlésienne’) (F 489 / JH 1625 ). Provenance research undertaken by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has revealed that the second version, Marie Ginoux (‘The Arlésienne’) (F 488 / JH 1624), was in the possession of Madame Ginoux. See also Feilchenfeldt 2005, p. 297.