1. It was evidently possible to send a shipment like this to Paris cash on delivery.

2. See for this special issue of L’Illustration on the Salon 1885: letter 497, n. 13.

3. Jules Breton, Le chant de l’alouette (The song of the lark), in L’Illustration 85 (25 April 1885), cover. Ill. 5 . The painting The song of the lark dates from 1884 (The Art Institute of Chicago, Henry Field Memorial Collection).

4. This print after the painting by Alfred Roll, Le travail, chantier de Suresnes (Seine) – see letter 499, n. 1 – was published in the Salon issue of L’Illustration 85 (25 April 1885), p. 292. Ill. 2139 .

5. Henri Fantin-Latour, Autour du piano (Around the piano) 1885 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay), in L’Illustration 85 (25 April 1885), p. 309. Ill. 830 .

6. Emile Louis Vernier, Grande marée d’octobre en Cornwall (Angleterre) (October spring tide in Cornwall (England)), in L’Illustration 85 (25 April 1885), p. 289, no. 10. Ill. 1405 .

7. See for Léon Augustin Lhermitte, Hirondelles ou le jardinage : letter 496, n. 4.

8. Auguste André Lançon died in Paris on 14 April 1885.

9. The Exposition J.-J. Tissot: Quinze tableaux sur la femme à Paris ran from 19 April to 15 June 1885 in Galerie Sedelmeyer in Paris. See Wentworth 1984, p. 205.

10. Ernest Philippe Boetzel had published albums containing engravings of the best works at the Salon; cf. letter 234, n. 16.

11. Anton Mauve’s Jaagpaarden langs de Rijnoever (Tow-horses on the bank of the Rhine) (private collection). Ill. 238 . At that time it belonged to the Hague collector F.H.M. Post; for him see letter 14, n. 10.

12. Fishing boat on the beach was shown at the Salon in 1882 (see letter 194, n. 5). Anton Mauve did not submit any work in 1883.

13. Van Gogh derived this observation from Sensier, La vie et l’oeuvre de J.F. Millet: see letter 495, n. 9.

14. There had been an anonymous review of this exhibition, held in ‘Mr. Robert Dunthorne’s Gallery’ in Vigo Street, London, in The Graphic 31 (14 March 1885), p. 263. It says there that there were not twenty-five but ‘nearly fifty water-colours, drawings and sketches’ by Frederick Walker. Cf. also J. Comyns Carr, Frederick Walker. An essay. To which is appended a catalogue of a loan collection of water-colour drawings by that painter. [London] 1885. Walker had indeed died in 1875.

15. Van Gogh may have been referring here to a print after Pinwell’s drawing The last load. This had been shown at the Water-colour Society in London, Winter 1869-1870 (London, Witt Library). Ill. 1217 .

16. See for Frederick Walker, The harbour of refuge : letter 304, n. 16.

17. Van Gogh may have based his breakdown of the periods in Leys’s work on the article ‘Artistes contemporains. M. Henri Leys’ by Mantz that he had read. Mantz discusses Leys’s ‘première manière’ (early manner), his development into a prominent artist and the highlights of his oeuvre. He describes the ‘période d’incubation’ (incubation period) as uncertain and not very original, but is full of praise for the later paintings and decorations. See Mantz 1866.

18. See for these two works, Crossing the bridge and Merry Company by Leys letter 354, n. 3.

19. Millet’s Church at Gréville, which Van Gogh had seen in the Musée du Luxembourg in 1875; see letter 36, n. 9.

20. This model for the Hague painter Artz must have been the talk of the town; she was referred to in similar terms in letter 203.

21. Opening line of the sixth verse of the poem ‘Le retour des champs’ (à François Millet) by Jules Breton. See Breton 1875, pp. 51-53. Van Gogh had copied out the whole poem for Anthon van Rappard in letter 435.

22. Jules Bastien-Lepage, La petite communiante (The little communicant) (Tournai, Musée des Beaux-Arts). Ill. 2140 . This picture hung at the Salon of 1875, which Van Gogh went to see (see letter 34). Catholics used the term ‘little bride’ to describe a girl taking her first communion.

23. Paul Albert Besnard exhibited two works at the Salon: Paris and Portrait de Mme G.[eorges Duruy]. See F-G. Dumas, Catalogue illustré du Salon. Paris 1885, cat. nos. 243-244.

24. For the shipment, see letter 501, n. 1.

25. Friedrich (Fritz) Karl Hermann von Uhde, Suffer the little children to come unto me, 1884 (Leipzig, Museum der bildenden Künste). Ill. 2141 . Theo later sent a reproduction of it: see letter 510.

26. Van Gogh was referring to Christ blessing the children, 1652-1653 (London, The National Gallery), at that time still thought to be by Rembrandt, but now attributed to Nicolaes Maes. Ill. 2142 . The work measures 206 x 154 cm.