1. Anna had passed her exam in English around 3 October (FR b2666), and her exam in needlework shortly before 13 October (FR b2669).

3. After writing this letter, Van Gogh made sixteen incisions, in which he mounted the four photographs he sent with the letter. Such photographs, which measured 6 x 9 cm, were usually glued to pieces of cardboard and sold as ‘Cartes de visite’.

4. Albert Anker, A baptism, 1864 (Lagnau, formerly Amtsersparniskasse). Also published in the ‘Galerie photographique’ of Goupil, no. 303 (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des Estampes). Ill. 1655

. Van Gogh sent the version from the ‘Carte de visite’ series.

5. George Henry Boughton, Early Puritans. For this ‘Carte de visite’, see letter 11, n. 5.

6. ‘The courtship of Miles Standish’, a narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first appeared in 1858 in The courtship of Miles Standish and other poems. See Longfellow 1886-1891, vol. 2, pp. 283-348. The poem relates a love story that took place at the time of the first Pilgrim Fathers in Plymouth, North America.

Van Gogh probably knew ‘3 paintings’ by Boughton from reproductions. One of them will have been The march of Miles Standish, which was exhibited in the Royal Academy (no. 493) in 1869. The print made after it by George C. Finden appeared in The Art Journal, N.S. vol. 11 (1 May 1872), between pp. 140-141. Ill. 1656

. It is not clear which other two paintings Van Gogh had in mind. Boughton made a number of depictions of ‘The Puritans in America’ and related subjects, and it is possible that Van Gogh associated several of them with the story of Miles Standish. See Werness 1985.

7. ‘Evangeline, a tale of Acadie’ (1847). See Longfellow 1886-1891, vol. 2, pp. 7-106. The story takes place in the early period of British colonization in Acadia (Nova Scotia in North America), when the Acadians were driven from their land during the Anglo-French War in Canada (known in Europe as the Seven Years’ War and in America as the French and Indian War).

8. Le bon frère (The good friar) is a reference to Jacques Alfred van Muyden’s Le bon moine (The good monk), a photograph of which was included in the ‘Carte-album’ series (Bordeaux, Musée Goupil). Ill. 1657

. Van Gogh sent the version from the ‘Carte de visite’ series.

9. Possibly a quotation from a contemporary art critic’s comments on Van Muyden’s work.

10. The banker Franciscus Hermanus Marinus Post. The canvas was offered for sale under the title Le frère quêteur (The friar collector) (1866) at the sale of the Post Collection in 1891 and sold for 910 guilders to F. Muller & Co. See Catalogue de la collection de tableaux modernes de monsieur ‘P***’, amateur, à la Haye ... Amsterdam 1891, p. 65, cat. no. 63.

11. Van Muyden, Refectory of the Capuchins at Albano, near Rome (1855), a reproduction of which appeared in L’Illustration 33 (5 February 1859), p. 85 (at that time in the possession of ‘General Dufour’). Ill. 1658

. Refectory does not occur in the ledgers (RKD, Goupil Ledgers)

12. Van Gogh is likely referring to the photograph of The good monk.

13. At this time Van Gogh was also writing to H.G. Tersteeg. Mrs van Gogh remarked to Theo: ‘Mr Tersteeg also wrote very kindly about Vincent. He could tell from his letters that he was feasting his eyes and ears to the full’ (FR b2668, on or about 4 October 1873).

14. ‘Carte de visite’ by (Jacques) Eugène Feyen, La lune de miel (The honeymoon), 1869 (Bordeaux, Musée Goupil). Ill. 1659

.

15. No reproduction of an art work with this title has been found. (The title is undoubtedly connected with Ludwig Uhland’s poem ‘Der Wirthin Töchterlein’, which Van Gogh knew; see Pabst 1988, pp. 34, 41-45.)

16. See the appendix at the end of the letter.

17. Lange Poten 10 in The Hague, Caroline’s parental home.

18. A parenthetical expression has been omitted here: ‘(celle que ce livre a prise jeune et conduite au déclin de l’âge)’ (‘the one this book took up when she was young and has followed into the twilight of her life’).

19. The quotation was taken from the chapter ‘Les aspirations de l’automne’ (The longing for autumn) of L’amour (1858) by Jules Michelet, part 5, chapter 5 (see Michelet, L’amour, pp. 388-389). Van Gogh added ‘(NB au Louvre)’ (l. 235). The painting referred to, known as Portrait of a woman (Paris, Musée du Louvre), was previously attributed to Philippe de Champaigne but is now viewed as anonymous French, seventeenth century. Ill. 1661

. This prose excerpt had a special meaning for Van Gogh and will be mentioned again later; see letters 35, 89, 90, 102, 132 and 133. Cf. also Pabst 1988, pp. 65, 90.

Many of Van Gogh’s ideas about love and women prove to have been inspired by the literature he read: above all by the books L’amour (1858) and La femme (1860). He went so far as to describe these didactic treatises on the ideal relationship between man and woman – they should become two-in-one and together bring about something real – as his gospel.

Michelet argues that a woman can only really be happy within marriage and under the guidance of the right man. He sets out the tasks and duties of each party and explains how the security and support provided by the husband, combined with the devotion and purity of the wife, can lead to a ‘divine unity’. Michelet advocated a vigorous and active love. Men who were not prepared to protect and rescue a woman should be ashamed of themselves.

Van Gogh had a copy of L’Amour. Paris (Hachette) 1861 with his name ‘Vincent’ inscribed at the front. See V.W. van Gogh, Les sources d’inspiration de Vincent van Gogh. Exhib. cat. Paris (Institut Néerlandais). Paris 1972, p. 22 (cat. no. 56).