1. The Happy Return had been wrecked on the Goodwin Sands; the crew were saved by another ship. See Bailey 1990, p. 78.

2. This most likely refers to The painter by Florent Willems, which Goupil’s Hague branch bought on 4 April 1876 for 7,000 guilders and resold on 7 May 1876 to Goupil in Paris for 25,000 guilders (RKD, Goupil Ledgers). The painting has not been identified; Willems’s known oeuvre contains several treatments of this subject.

3. Theo had probably written about one of the two drawings by Mauve which Goupil had only recently acquired: After the rain and Dusk, bought on 19 and 21 April for 150 and 100 guilders, respectively. Both works were eventually resold to the London branch (RKD, Goupil Ledgers).

4. Mauve was living and working – one year after his marriage on 26 November 1874, in any case – at Alexanderplein 19 (old numbering) in The Hague. See Engel 1967, p. 54.

5. The wide, wide world (1851) by Elizabeth Wetherell (pseudonym of Susan Warner). This extremely popular novel, which was translated into many languages, is the story of a ‘motherless girl who learns Christian forbearance and love despite numerous trials and cruel treatment’; the book has ‘a rural background and a marked religious flavor’. See Notable American women 1607-1950. A biographical dictionary. Ed. E.T. James. Cambridge 1971, p. 543.

6. This was the Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant of 28 April 1876: see letter 78, n. 10.