RM13 To Hendrik Jan Furnée, crossed-out fragment of an order for paint. Hoogeveen, September 1883.

metadata

No. RM13 (Brieven 1990 -, Complete Letters )
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Hendrik Jan Furnee
Date: Hoogeveen, September 1883

Source status

Original manuscript

Location

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b349 b V/1962

Additional

This deleted passage proves to have been the beginning of a letter; Van Gogh crossed it out, turned the sheet around, and used it for the second part of letter 388 to Theo. The lines 351-357 (‘The sermon ... handshake’) are written between this crossed-out fragment.

The order was probably intended for the Hague colourman Hendrik Jan Furnée (cf. letters 369 and 391). In letter 392 Van Gogh remarks: ‘For I’d had paint sent from Furnée’s’.

original text

1r:1

Mijnheer,

Het zou mij aangenaam wezen als postpakket van U te ontvangen

6 tubes1 laque de garance (rose/3, brûlée/3)				f.	1.95
En	6	tubes	Outremer gewoon		-.60
	8	,,	Indigo		1.80

translation

1r:1

Dear Sir,

I should be obliged to receive from you in a parcel

6 tubes1 of madder (3 rose, 3 burnt)				1.95	guilders
And	6	tubes	Ultramarine ordinary	-.60
	8	,,	Indigo	1.80

notes

1. It has not yet been determined whether the following list refers to watercolours or oil paints. Van Gogh used both types of paint in Drenthe; but judging by the number of tubes, this order was most likely for oil paints. It is interesting that the list includes indigo, since the presence of this colour in his palette had previously been established only from June 1884 onwards – about nine months later. See letter 450, and cf. Carlo Derkert, ‘Theory and practice in van Gogh’s Dutch painting’, Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 15 (1946) 3-4, p. 99.