1. Korn paper is a strong, generally wood-free drawing paper with a grained texture. Carl Kappstein, Der künstlerische Steindruck. Handwerkliche Erfahrungen bei künstlerischen Flachdruckverfahren. Berlin 1910, lists different types.

a. Read: ‘alwaar’ (where).

2. This sentence closely resembles a passage crossed out in letter 410: ‘It’s the same with people as with brushes – the ones that look the best are not the best to work with.’ This may be a quotation.

3. The size of the sketch is 1.2 x 13 cm. They were hacked-out pieces of stone, so the dimensions varied widely.

4. Soup distribution in a public soup kitchen (F 1020 a/ JH 330 ).

5. Means ‘range of black tones’. Read as ‘kleur’ (colour) of black in earlier editions.

6. The head of a woman in profile (letter sketch D) may be derived from a figure in Saison d’octobre by Jules Bastien-Lepage (see letter 493, n. 9).

7. The holder (‘teekenpen’) gripped the sticks of natural chalk, making them easier to work with.

8. ‘It has the colour of a ploughed field on a summer evening! I’ll get half a barrel if that’s the measure it’s sold by, which I doubt, however’ was added later. Van Gogh used the word ‘mud’, a Dutch measure of capacity equivalent to 100 litres and applied chiefly to potatoes and coal.

9. See for Album des Vosges: letter 267, n. 9. The phrasing shows that Van Rappard has looked for the magazine, but failed to find it.

10. In the estate there are two prints after Auguste Lançon, both engraved by Frederick William Moller, that could be the one in question: Contrebandier (Smuggler), in Le Monde Illustré 17 (15 February 1873), p. 104. Ill. 1027 (t*34), and La douane et la contrebande dans les montagnes du Jura. Contrebandiers sautant la Valserine (Customs and contraband in the Jura mountains. Smugglers fleeing across the Valserine river), in L’Illustration 59 (16 March 1872), p. 172. Ill. 2076 (t*757).

11. This could be the engraving La charité à Paris. Une distribution de vivres aux indigents à la porte d’une caserne (Charity in Paris. The distribution of food to the poor at the entrance to a barracks), in L’Illustration 72 (21 December 1878), p. 397, or one of the 17 etchings in A. Lançon, Guerre de 1870. Siège de Paris (The war of 1870. The siege of Paris), published by A. Salmon of Paris (Paris, BNF, Cabinet des Estampes). For Soup distribution , engraved by Frederick William Moller, see letter 261, n 6.

12. For A. Lançon, A rag-pickers’ tavern in Paris , see letter 261, n. 5.

13. Paul Renouard illustrated the supplement ‘Chatte et chatons’ by G. de Cherville with 15 cat scenes, ending with the full-page Premiers jeux (First games), in L’Illustration 73 (5 April 1879), pp. 218-220. Ill. 2077 , Ill. 2078 and Ill. 390 .

14. For Paul Renouard, A speech by M. Gambetta , see letter 268, n. 5.

15. For Paul Renouard, The beggars on New Year’s Day , see letter 309, n. 11.

16. Félix Régamey, Chine – La cour de l’hospice des enfants trouvés de Canton (China – The courtyard of the orphanage in Canton), in Le Monde Illustré 23 (3 May 1879), p. 284. There is one copy in the estate. Ill. 1154 (t*750). Van Gogh is mistaken about the country.

17. Guillaume Urbain Régamey, Les cuirasseurs du 9e (The armoured men of the 9th division), engraved by Fortuné Louis Méaulle, in Le Monde Illustré 23 (19 April 1879), p. 252. There is one copy in the estate. Ill. 1253 . (t*37). Van Gogh derived his information from the caption, which says that the painting was hung at the Salon of 1869 and could be seen in Paris at the ‘Exposition de l’oeuvre de Guillaume Régamey au Cercle de la rue Saint-Arnaud’.

18. The biography is part of the article ‘L’exposition des oeuvres de Guillaume Régamey’, signed ‘L.F.’ See Le Monde Illustré 23 (19 April 1879), p. 250.

19. Van Gogh had several wood engravings by Félix Régamey on Japanese subjects, including Opening of the railway in Japan – Arrival of the Mikado; Sketches from Japan, travelling in the Kago and A Japanese dinner party, all three from The Illustrated London News 1872-1874 (t*10, t*681 and t*790).

20. For Edwin Buckman, A London dustyard , see letter 273, n. 5.

21. For Frederick Walker, The harbour of refuge , see letter 304, n. 16.

22. This Lavieille – referred to later as ‘the wood engraver’ – is Adrien Lavieille.

23. In the estate there are eight Lançons that were engraved by Frederick William Moller: besides the four already mentioned (see nn. 10-12), they are Douanier (Customs officer) (t*39), L’instruction primaire, une école primaire dans le Haut Jura: la classe (Primary education, a primary school in the high Jura: the class) (t*754), L’hiver, la chasse sur la neige (In winter, hunting in the snow) (t*755) and Lionne à l’affut (Lioness ready to pounce) (t*756).

24. Ernest Philippe Boetzel published albums with engravings of works that had been shown at the Salon. The Album Boetzel. Le Salon 1869 included Feyen-Perrin’s Vanneuses de Cancale (Winnowers of Cancale), engraved by Tropsch (Ill. 2081 ); the album for 1870 had Mélancolie (Melancholy) (Ill. 2082 ).

25. Van Gogh had Millet’s series The four times of the day and The labours of the fields , engraved by Adrien Lavieille: see letters 37, n. 16 and 156, n. 1.

26. This may be the painting Un bac en Hollande (A ferryboat in Holland) that Théophile de Bock showed at the Salon of 1883 (see letter 360, n. 3).

b. A working man’s suit of strong cotton.

27. Johannes Warnardus Bilders was known for his romanticized landscapes, principally of the woods and heaths in the province of Gelderland: the vicinity of Vorden, Oosterbeek, Wolfheze and Doorwerth (near Arnhem). It is clear from l. 213 that Van Gogh does not mean Gerard Bilders.

28. For Jacob van Ruisdael’s The storm and The bush in the Louvre, see letter 34, n. 4.

29. Jacob van Ruisdael, The windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). Ill. 1312 . Also from the Van der Hoop collection – Van Gogh refers to ‘mills’ in the plural – is Ruisdael’s Landscape with watermill, 1661 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). Ill. 2083 .

30. For Jacob van Ruisdael’s View of Haarlem with bleaching grounds , see letter 37, n. 3.

31. This passage bears a strong resemblance to the description of Ruisdael’s oeuvre by E.J.T. Thoré (under the pseudonym W. Bürger) in Musées de la Hollande. See Thoré 1858-1860, vol. 2, p. 138.

c. Read: ‘meer bepaald’ (more specifically).

32. Gerard Bilders. ‘The elder’ is the father (see n. 27 above).

33. Van Gogh probably means the anonymous portrait engraving after a photograph of Thomas Carlyle in The Graphic 1 (30 April 1870), p. 516. Ill. 2084 . The commentary with it reads in part: ‘What he says may be true, or it may be false, or it may be exaggerated; but still there is something in it, and at least it is one aspect of a great and complex truth. He is clearly a strong man; that is he has a strong intelligence, and he knows very well what he himself means’. There are references to the ‘worshippers’ and ‘depreciators’ of this ‘thoroughly conscientious historian and critic’ (pp. 515-516). The picture was also in The Graphic Portfolio of 1877.

34. Thomas Carlyle incorporated his spiritual concerns and some autobiographical information into the satire Sartor resartus. The life and opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh (1833-1834). He supposedly discusses the philosophy of the German professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh. Old clothes are a central theme of the book. They are a metaphor for conventions and behaviour which people hide behind (particularly book 1, 11, ‘Prospective’, which deals with ‘The philosophy of clothes’.) Cf. also letter 274, n. 11.

35. On the criticism of the book at the time: Heffer 1995, pp. 156-157, 183-184. The particular criticism cited by Van Gogh has not been traced.

36. Carlyle unmasks the farce of outward appearances, and points despite his pessimism to Christian faith and love. He brings in Jesus and Goethe; the motto of the book is derived from the latter: ‘Mein Vermächtniss, wie herrlich weit und breit! / Die Zeit ist mein Vermächtniss, mein Acker is die Zeit’. See Carlyle 1987, p. 1.

37. Between 18 and 30 December 1882 A Christmas carol and The haunted man were published by Chapman and Hall of London in one volume for sixpence, with illustrations by John Leech, Clarkson Stanfield and Frederick Barnard. Barnard did eight illustrations in total (pp. 3, 6, 19, 21, 26, 35, 43, 53). The ‘junk shop’ refers to the illustration with the caption “What do you call this?” said Joe,“Bed curtains!”, engraved by the Dalziel Brothers. See A Christmas carol, p. 21. Ill. 530 .

38. Frederick Barnard’s Character sketches from Dickens (1879) contains portraits of Alfred Jingle, Esq. and Mr. Pickwick as well as those mentioned here. The series was later expanded to 16 and published as photogravures. Mrs. Gamp (Martin Chuzzlewit) Ill. 536 ; Little Dorrit (Little Dorrit) Ill. 535 ; Bill Sikes and his dog (Oliver Twist), Ill. 538 ; and Sydney Carton (A tale of two cities) Ill. 537 ; Alfred Jingle, Esq. (Pickwick papers) Ill. 2085 and Mr. Pickwick (Pickwick papers) (London, Witt Library). Ill. 2086 .

39. A ‘cartoon’ is a design drawn on thick paper or cardboard that is used to make a wall painting, tile tableau, stained-glass window or pattern for woven fabrics and suchlike.

40. This view is repeatedly encountered in Taine’s Histoire de la littérature anglaise. He writes: ‘There is in him a painter, and an English painter. No mind, I believe, has ever imagined in more precise detail or with greater energy, every part and every colour of a painting ... Dickens has the passion and the patience of his nation’s painters; he counts the details, one by one, he notes the different colours of old tree-trunks; he sees the split barrel, the broken, greenish cobblestones, the crevices in damp walls; he distinguishes the unusual smells they give off; he notes the size of patches of moss, he reads the names of schoolchildren inscribed on the door and dwells on the shape of the letters ... He’ll lose himself, like his country’s painters, in the minute and passionate observation of small things; he will never have any love for beautiful forms or beautiful colours.’ (Il y a en lui un peintre, et un peintre anglais. Jamais esprit, je crois, ne s’est figuré avec un détail plus exact et une plus grande énergie toutes les parties et toutes les couleurs d’un tableau ... Dickens a la passion et la patience des peintres de sa nation: il compte un à un les détails, il note les couleurs différentes des vieux troncs d’arbres; il voit le tonneau fendu, les dalles verdies et cassées, les crevasses des murs humides; il distingue les singulières odeurs qui en sortent; il marque la grosseur des taches de mousse, il lit les noms d’écoliers inscrits sur la porte et s’appesantit sur la forme des lettres ... Il se perdra, comme les peintres de son pays, dans l’observation minutieuse et passionnée des petites choses; il n’aura point l’amour des belles formes et des belles couleurs). See ed. Paris 1874, vol. 5, pp. 6, 16, 22 (‘Dickens’, chapter 1). Cf. letter 232, n. 14.

41. This children’s print by Barnard, engraved by Joseph Swain, is In de achterbuurt (In the slums). It is in the estate. Ill. 1364 (t*785). The source has not been traced.

42. For Luke Fildes, The empty chair , see letter 251, n. 11.

43. Between 1857 and 1874 the works of Dickens were published in a 28-volume French translation under the title Oeuvres de Charles Dickens. Dickens himself had authorized the publisher, Hachette. See Forster 1872-1874, vol. 3, pp. 99, 103, 512.

44. For the dialect in Hard times, which is spoken by the worker Stephen Blackpool among others, Dickens based himself on the Lancashire dialect of northern England. For Blackpool’s vocabulary and pronunciation, see G.L. Brook, The language of Charles Dickens. London 1970, pp. 125-130.

45. For Dickens’s Household Edition, see letter 133, n. 53.

46. Francis Montague Holl, Alone, in The Graphic 27 (10 February 1883), Supplement, between pp. 146 and 147. There is a copy in the estate. Ill. 938 (t*2).

47. Leech contributed some 3000 designs to Punch and illustrated numerous books, including A Christmas carol by Dickens. See Engen 1995, pp. 154-155.

48. Van Gogh mentions Leech, Cruikshank and Barnard in sequence. This suggests that he had in mind the illustrators of Dickens’s work; see Guzzoni 2020, p. 213, n. 15. Van Gogh’s conclusive comment ‘Leech, though, is strong with street urchins’ probably refers to the illustrations that Leech created for the first edition of The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, which comprises four striking scenes with boys (London 1848, pp. 48, 68, 130, 145).