1. Landscape with bog-oak trunks (F 1095 / JH 406 ). The location depicted may be on the Heerendijk, a transitional area between the high and low moorland to the west of the lodging-house, with trunks and remnants of bog-oaks in the foreground. See Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, pp. 195-196.

2. Women working in the peat (F - / JH 410). The letter sketch was done in the peat district to the west of the lodging-house. The women are probably gathering sods. See cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 48-49.

3. See for Jacob van Ruisdael’s View of Haarlem with bleaching grounds : letter 37, n. 3. After the word ‘Overveen’ Van Gogh crossed out: ‘yet here it was light in the background’.

4. Saying, based on a line from the poem ‘Lochiel’s warning’ (1802) by Thomas Campbell. The lines

were often quoted. See The poetical works of Thomas Campbell. Ed. W.A. Hill. London 1854, pp. 102-107 (quotation on p. 105).

5. Roland Knoedler was the son of the art dealer Mich[a]el Knoedler, who set up as Goupil & Cie’s representative in New York in 1850, and established his own art dealership in 1857. After his son joined the business in 1877, this gallery became known as M. Knoedler & Co. Theo often did business with this firm. See The rise of the art world in America. Knoedler at 150. S. Hunter and M. de Medeiros. Exhib. cat. New York (Knoedler & Co.), 1996-1997. New York 1996.

6. The subject must have arisen during Van Wisselingh’s recent visit to Van Gogh in The Hague (see letter 380). Van Gogh believed that he was having difficulty keeping his head above water as an independent art dealer in Paris (see l. 86).

7. The reading of ‘Bock’ is uncertain; it may say ‘Back’ or ‘Buck’.

8. Sund describes this phrase as ‘unquestionably Zolaesque’ because each of the terms appears repeatedly in Mes haines. See Sund 1992, pp. 276-277 (n. 3). See for triumph of mediocrity (‘triomphe de la médiocrité’) also letter 293.

9. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 5: ‘The time is out of joint’. See Shakespeare 1882, p. 166. Cf. also letter 387, n. 6.

10. Theo himself seems to have fuelled the idea that he could become a painter. See letter 408, l. 76.

11. This plan was to result in Two women working in the peat (F 19 / JH 409 ).