1. Alphonse Daudet’s Le Nabab – Moeurs parisiennes (1877) is a novel about the fall of Bernard Jansoulet, known as Le Nabab, who has amassed a fortune in Tunis. When this successful and honest businessman moves to Paris, he is swindled and rejected by this immoral and degenerate city. He later dies of despair.

2. The walk in the famous Parisian cemetery Père Lachaise is described in ‘Les funérailles’ (chapter 19); for the scene with Balzac’s bust, see Daudet 1986-1994, vol. 2. p. 761.

3. As far as is known, there was only a painting of Scene from the Revolution

(Scene from the Revolution), not a drawing, as Vincent had evidently understood from Theo; see also letter 280, n. 7.

Theo himself had probably drawn a link between Denis Dussoubs, a republican activist, and the young revolutionary at the centre of Daumier’s painting, unless he was referring to a drawing (possibly unknown).

Victor Hugo’s Histoire d’un crime (1877-1878) recounts the events during the coup of December 1851 in Paris. The fourth volume, ‘Quatrième journée. La victoire’, chapter 3: ‘Les faits de la nuit – le Petit-Carreau’ describes at great length how Dussoubs is killed while making a heroic attempt to mediate in a battle between soldiers and republicans. See Hugo 1987, pp. 374-383.

4. A reference to the title of the last chapter of Hugo’s historical novel Quatre-vingt-treize (1874), ‘Cependant le soleil se lève’. See for Quatre-vingt-treize: letter 286, n. 9.

5. A reference to a dialogue between the humble Fritz Kobus and the rabbi David Sichel (not ‘Sechel’, as Van Gogh writes a little later) in L’ami Fritz by Erckmann-Chatrian. They discuss the question whether one should pursue happiness in life. The rabbi does not think so, because God did not intend it. He deduces this from the fact that God has not given man the means with which to be happy. On being asked what God does want from us in that case, he answers: ‘Il veut que nous méritions le bonheur, et cela fait une grande différence, Kobus’. See L’ami Fritz, edition bound with Histoire du plébiscite. Paris 1872, pp. 14-15.

6. Strictly speaking, it is possible that three drawings are being described here, but given that with the lithographs Van Gogh was primarily concerned with the figures, we may assume that he is describing two drawings, the first including the background and the second only the central subject. These drawings are not known.

a. Means: ‘naar omstandigheden’, ‘in dit verband’ (under the circumstances, in this connection).

7. This comparison, which was added as an afterthought, may come from Victor Hugo’s William Shakespeare: ‘Prometheus was Right defeated. Jupiter, as always, perpetrated the usurpation of power by putting Right to the torture’ (Prométhée, c’est le droit vaincu. Jupiter a, comme toujours, consommé l’usurpation du pouvoir par le supplice du droit). See Hugo 1864, p. 307, and exhib. cat. Vienna 1996, pp. 33-34.

8. Cf. the saying ‘Aan wat gebeuren moet, is geen ontkomen’.

9. The French landscape painter Julien Dupré was a nephew of the artist Jules Dupré. The work referred to with two reapers has not been identified – Dupré produced numerous scenes with ‘reapers’ and farm labourers, mostly undated. The second reproduction Van Gogh mentions is the print engraved by Jules Louis Laurent Langeval after Dupré’s painting Dans la prairie (In the meadow), in Le Monde Illustré 26 (16 September 1882), pp. 184-185. Ill. 794

10. A ‘beggar’ by Dagnan-Bouveret is not known, but given that Van Gogh mentions several prints that appeared in Le Monde Illustré, he must mean the engraving Un mendiant (A beggar), after the work with the same title by Jules Bastien-Lepage, engraved by Charles Baude, in Le Monde Illustré 25 (25 June 1881), pp. 424-425. Ill. 542

. A reduced reproduction of it was in L’Illustration 77 (14 May 1881), p. 327; a lithograph in La Vie Moderne 3 (11 June 1881), p. 377.

The ‘wedding party’ is Dagnan-Bouveret’s Une noce chez le photographe (A wedding party at the photographer’s), engraved by Auguste Louis Lepère, in Le Monde Illustré 24 (7 February 1880), pp. 88-89. Ill. 38

. There was also an engraving by Rouget in L’Univers Illustré 23 (7 February 1880), p. 85, and a photogravure at Goupil, reproduced in Eugène Montrosier, Les artistes modernes, part 1. Paris 1881, p. 112.

Auguste Louis Lepère also engraved Un accident (An accident) in Le Monde Illustré 24 (22 May 1880), p. 321. Ill. 735

. A print by Charles Baude appeared in L’Illustration 77 (28 May 1881), between pp. 364 and 365; L’Univers Illustré 23 (29 May 1880) p. 341 also had a print.

For A bird charmer in the Jardin des Tuileries

, see letter 275, n. 40.

11. By ‘the series of aquatints published by Graves’ Van Gogh must mean the series of mezzotints (‘mixed mezzotint’) published by Henry Graves & Co.

The print after Thomas Faed, Sunday in the backwoods of Canada, was engraved by William Henry Simmons in 1863; it is also known as Scottish emigrants’ Sunday in the backwoods (London, Victoria & Albert Museum). Ill. 828

Henry Cousins made a print after Faed’s Home and the homeless (Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland), Ill. 826

, (see The printsellers’ association catalogue of registered engravings. London 1912, no. 171). It has not been traced.

Frederick Stacpoole made a mezzotint after Worn out (1868) (London, British Museum). Ill. 829

The print after The poor, the poor man’s friend, 1867 (London, Victoria & Albert Museum), Ill. 827

, was engraved by William Henry Simmons (see The printsellers’ association catalogue of registered engravings. London 1912, no. 293). It has not been traced.

12. Three large drawings with pollard willows from the Etten period are known: F 1678 / JH 46; F 900 / JH 47; F 995 / JH 56.

13. A cellar where hot water and glowing coals could be bought.

14. Van Gogh probably means the four-volume publication Thieme’s teeken-cahiers door J.M. Schmidt Crans. Arnhem, G.J. Thieme, 1866. The volumes cost 15 or 20 cents (see Brinkman). As far as is known no copies are extant.

15. The ‘yeux d’aigue marine’ occur in Les rois en exil – Roman parisien (chapters 3 and 4). See Daudet 1986-1994, vol. 2, pp. 912, 940. Van Gogh is referring to the gentle and resigned Queen Frédérique of Illyria, one of the principal characters in the novel.