1. This was letter 781.

2. These baths were part of the hydrotherapy treatment; see letter 776, n. 23.

3. This was the fellow named Polack, mentioned by Theo in letter 781, who had praised Vincent’s Marie Ginoux (‘The Arlésienne’) (F 489 / JH 1625 ).

4. This model was Augustine Roulin.

5. Regarding Café Le Tambourin, where Van Gogh exhibited his own work and some Japanese prints, see letter 571, nn. 3 and 4, and letter 640, n. 5. In November-December 1887 he had organized an exhibition of paintings by himself and his friends in Grand Bouillon-Restaurant du Chalet in avenue de Clichy; see letter 575, n. 9.

6. Van Gogh is referring to the neighbourhood residents, who had signed a petition complaining about him and submitted it to Jacques Tardieu, the mayor of Arles. Thirty people signed the petition. See letter 750, nn. 2 and 3.

7. This was Olive trees with the Alpilles in the background (F 712 / JH 1740 ), which Van Gogh later mentions with F 612 (see letter 805).

8. Starry night (F 612 / JH 1731 ).

9. Trees with ivy in the garden of the asylum (F 609 / JH 1693 ).

10. Van Gogh later added ‘But of course ... of it’.

11. Saint-Ouen is a suburb to the north of Paris.

12. For the weekly magazine Le Chat Noir, see letter 492, n. 7. Shortly before this, Theo had sent Vincent several issues of the magazine Le Fifre that contained drawings by Forain; see letter 754, n. 2.

13. The painting The bedroom (F 482 / JH 1608 ) was damaged (see letter 765) and thus needed to be lined.

14. In 1861 the London publishing house of John Dicks published an illustrated edition of Shakespeare’s Complete works, which was reprinted a number of times. A letter in the Bookseller of 1868 reveals how popular this edition was: ‘John Dicks sold within a few years nearly a million copies of this shilling edition.’ See William Jaggard, Shakespeare bibliography. A dictionary of every known issue of the writings of the poet and of recorded opinion thereon in the English language. New York 1959, pp. 535, 537-539, 549.

15. The courtyard of the hospital (F 1467 / JH 1688 ).

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

17. Van Gogh’s mention of ‘the fields and the olive trees’ probably refers to a single drawing: Olive trees with the Alpilles in the background (F 1543 / JH 1743 ). See cat. Amsterdam 2007, pp. 222-224, cat. no. 363. For another interpretation, cf. exhib. cat. Otterlo 1990, p. 285.

18. Van Gogh is referring to the six large pen drawings he had made on Montmajour in 1888. See letter 639, nn. 1 and 2 and cat. Amsterdam 2007, pp. 135-146.

19. We know from letter 790 that Van Gogh sent six drawings. In addition to the three drawings mentioned in nn. 15-17 above, the Giant peacock moth (F 1523 / JH 1700 ) was also in the consignment, as emerges from Theo’s letter 792. The two ‘hasty studies done in the garden’ were Periwinkle (F 1614 / JH 2060 ), which Theo described as ‘branches of eglantine’ in letter 792, and probably Tassel hyacinth (F 1612 / JH 2059 ); see letter 776, n. 28.