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223 To Theo van Gogh. The Hague, Tuesday, 2 May 1882.

metadata
No. 223 (Brieven 1990 222, Complete Letters 196)
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: The Hague, Tuesday, 2 May 1882

Source status
Original manuscript

Location
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b218 V/1962

Date
Postmarked: Tuesday, 2 May 1882; this concurs with the comment below the signature: ‘Tuesday evening’.

Additional
Postcard (5 cents). Postmark: ‘’SGRAVENHAGE 7-8 N / 2 MEI 82’. It is addressed to ‘Monsieur Th. van Gogh./ 25 Rue de Laval./ Paris.’ Van Gogh presumably wrote in English to make it difficult for others to read; cf. in this respect letter 233.

original text
 1r:1
This day I have sent to you by bookpost 1 drawing, “A Root in a dry ground”.1 You just let me know what you think of it. Les Racines2 is very similar to this one but I can’t senda that one neither “Sorrow”3 in this manner on a roller, the drawings being mounted on cardboard. With regard to this one I hammered it off in a single day, having studied the same spot and trees for Les racines. So it has been done “tout d’un trait” out of doors & has not even been in my studio.
But the paper has been slightly damaged in 2 or 3 places as I worked through it, please have this seen to at once, else it might get worse. I think it wants a grey mount.4 Good bye, hope to hear of you at yr early convenience.

Vincent

Tuesday evening

 1v:2
translation
 1r:1
This day I have sent to you by book-post 1 drawing, ‘A root in a dry ground’.1 You just let me know what you think of it. Roots2 is very similar to this one but I can’t sent that one neither ‘Sorrow’3 in this manner on a roller, the drawings being mounted on cardboard. With regard to this one I hammered it off in a single day, having studied the same spot and trees for Roots. So it’s been done ‘in one go’ out of doors and hasn’t even been in my studio.
But the paper has been slightly damaged in 2 or 3 places as I worked through it, please have this seen to at once, else it might get worse. I think it wants a grey mount.4 Good bye, hope to hear of you at yr early convenience.

Vincent

Tuesday evening
 1v:2
notes
1. This drawing is not known. With regard to the title, cf. Isa. 53:2: ‘As a root out of a dry ground’.
2. Les racines. Study of a tree (F 933r / JH 142 ).
a. Read: ‘send’.
3. This large version of Sorrow is not known; see letter 222, n. 1.
4. Regarding this advice, probably prompted by reading Edmond and Jules de Goncourt’s Gavarni, l’homme et l’oeuvre, see letter 216, n. 4.