Original manuscript

New York, Guggenheim Museum. Thannhauser Collection. Inv. no. 78.2514T20.

The fragment, which is part of an earlier version of letter 627, was probably written on the same day as that letter, which dates from about Sunday, 17 June 1888.

This sketch with a fragment of a letter was sent to John Russell, together with letter 627. Appearing on the back of Head of a girl (F 1507a / JH 1466) is a fragment of text that was part of an earlier version of that letter (which explains why both the letter and this fragment mention the same things), in which Van Gogh writes: ‘I was writing to you and ... instead of continuing the letter I began to draw on the very paper the head of a dirty little girl ... I enclose the slip of scribbling.’ See also exhib. cat. New York 1984, pp. 105, 255, cat. no. 51; cat. New York 1992, p. 178.