1. There were two ways of travelling by railway from Paris to Auvers: from the Gare du Nord and the Gare St-Lazare (both about 42 km from Auvers). At the time the fares were as follows: 1st class: 12 centimes/km; 2nd class 9.2 centimes/km; 3rd class 6.7 centimes/km (i.e. 4.50, 3.68 and 2.68 francs, respectively). Paris, Musée français du chemin de fer.

2. For the exhibition of Raffaëlli’s work, see letter 876, n. 1.

3. Van Gogh had placed an order for paint in letter 877.

4. Vincent had asked Theo to send Bargue’s Exercices au fusain. Regarding this publication, see letter 156, n. 12. For the copies Van Gogh made from Bargue’s sheets in Auvers, see cat. Amsterdam 2007, pp. 479-487, cat. nos. 483-485.

5. It is not known which painting by Guillaumin is referred to here. Only two portraits by Guillaumin coming from the family collection ended up in the Van Gogh Museum, whereas in 1891 the collection contained four of his paintings (possibly including the landscape with sunset mentioned here). See Account book 2002, p. 22.

6. This exchange with Léon Gausson took place after Vincent’s death, as emerges from Gausson’s letter of condolence to Theo (FR b1275, August 1890). See Pickvance 1992, pp. 128-129. The exchange probably included Gausson’s The church tower of Bussy-Saint-Georges, Seine-et-Marne, 1887-1888 (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 2315

. It is not known which work by Van Gogh he received in exchange. According to Francis Jourdain, it was a ‘very beautiful landscape’, still in Gausson’s possession in 1906, ‘which misfortune obliged him to exchange for three or four 100-franc notes’. See Sans remords, ni rancune. Paris 1953, p. 278; quoted in Micheline Hanotelle, Léo Gausson (1860-1944). Un peintre méconnu du Post-Impressionnisme. Paris 2001, p. 21. Pickvance suggested the possibility that it was a painting from Arles that is no longer known. See Pickvance 1992, p. 13.