1. This could be an allusion to Correggio’s utterance ‘anch’io sono pittore’ (I, too, am a painter), which Van Gogh quoted in a recent letter (see letter 214, n. 3).

2. Van Gogh quotes an analogous line of reasoning used by Theophile de Bock in letters 175 and 176.

3. This is the first time that Van Gogh reveals the identity of his model, Clasina (Sien, Christien) Maria Hoornik; for what is possibly the first reference to her, see letter 207. His attitude towards fallen women and his ideas about domestic and social issues and the sanctity of the nuclear family, concur with what he had read in Michelet (particularly La femme) and gleaned from English magazines. See Zemel 1987.

4. Sien eventually had her baby in the Academisch Ziekenhuis (teaching hospital) in Leiden, a town c. 10 miles north-west of The Hague. There she was treated by the director of the clinic, the professor of obstetrics Abraham Everard Simon Thomas (Van Gogh Museum, Documentation).

a. Meaning: ‘uiteindelijk zal gaan bevallen’ (will eventually give birth).

5. Van Gogh later added the sentence ‘As it is... nervous’.

6. See letter 219 for an earlier mention of Mauve’s changed attitude.

7. Eccl. 9:10.

8. This is a reference to Kee Vos.

9. The ‘couple of studies’ (a bit further on Van Gogh says three) are probably: 1. Seated woman (F 935 / JH 143 ) or Seated woman (F 937 / JH 144 ); 2. Woman sewing (F 932 / JH 145 ) – Van Gogh goes on to say that ‘the chair by the large figure isn’t finished’, which clearly refers to this drawing – and 3. the portrait of Sien’s mother (see n. 10). The drawings are ‘all on rather heavy Ingres paper’ and ‘the paper used is of the same quality as the other drawings of this group’. See cat. Otterlo 2007, pp. 120, 124-126, and exhib. cat. The Hague 2005, pp. 172-174.

10. Sien’s mother was Maria Wilhelmina Hoornik-Pellers. The drawing Woman with a white bonnet (F 1009a / JH 106 ), which could be a portrait of her, is dated by Hulsker to March 1882. Vincent might have sent the drawing to Theo to prove that Sien’s family were useful as models. Cf. letter 212, n. 4.

11. Because Van Gogh sent three studies, this figure must have been one of the two called Seated woman (see n. 9).

12. For female figures in black merino, cf. letter 222, n. 24.