1. The satisfaction Tersteeg expressed in Theo’s performance also resulted in a rise: in January his salary had been increased to 38 guilders a month (FR b2683).

2. Van Gogh knew Anton Mauve through his work at Goupil’s in The Hague.

3. Jean-François Millet, The angelus (The evening angelus), 1857-1859 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay). Ill. 1697

. Van Gogh could not have seen the painting himself, but many reproductions of this famous work were in circulation. It had caused a stir because of the high price paid for it by the Paris art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1867 (30,000 francs) and the price for which it was sold in 1872 to the Brussels collector John W. Wilson (38,000 francs). Cf. exhib. cat. Paris 1975, pp. 103-106, cat. no. 66; Sillevis 1989, p. 44, and Jensen 1994, pp. 61-62.

4. Probably Jean Louis Hamon; cf. letter 40.

5. Probably Charles François Jalabert; cf. letter 128.

7. Presumably Jacob Maris, often mentioned later on in Vincent’s correspondence, who was a brother of the previously mentioned Matthijs (Thijs). Their brother Willem was also a painter, but his name occurs in Vincent’s letters only sporadically.

8. In a letter written to Theo on 24 December 1873, Mr van Gogh quoted one of Vincent’s letters from London: ‘Vincent writes that he really enjoys so many good things, more all the time – and then he says

“the valuable life,

your gift, O God!”’ (FR b2676).

The quotation was taken from the poem ‘Een kruis met rozen’ (A cross with roses) by P.A. de Génestet. See De Génestet 1869, vol. 2, p. 208.

9. During the 1873 Christmas holidays Theo was visiting the Tersteeg family, which Mrs van Gogh took as proof that Theo’s superior was satisfied with him; Vincent was received by the family of his superior, Obach (FR b2682).