1. Willem Wenckebach was awarded a bronze medal at the London International and Universal Exhibition (Crystal Palace), which opened on 23 April 1884. We do not know for certain which painting this was (the catalogue has not been traced), but in the light of a report in the Algemeen Handelsblad its must have been a landscape – this work once belonged to J.L. Beijers of Utrecht. See for Van Rappard’s medal: letter 448. On the exhibition: The Times of 21 April 1884, p. 4 and of 24 April 1884, p. 7; on Wenckebach’s prize and the work: Algemeen Handelsblad of 25 April 1884, p. 1 (morning edition), of 27 May 1884, p. 1 (Supplement to the evening edition), and Eigen Haard 31 (1905), p. 422.

2. See for the paintings of cottages, The cottage (F 83 / JH 777 ), Cottage and woman with a goat (F 90 / JH 823 ), Cottage with peasant coming home (F 170 / JH 824 ), Village at sunset (F 190 / JH 492), Cottage with woman digging (F 89 / JH 803 ), and Cottage (F - / JH add 23), that Vincent in any event had ready for Theo at that time: letter 513, n. 1. It is not possible to establish exactly which figure drawings he is referring to here.

3. This is an unfinished later addition to the letter. We reckon Van Gogh meant ‘colourists always concentrate on the colours’.

4. Van Gogh probably means the painting The old tower (F 88 / JH 490 ), which he had made in the summer of 1884.

5. See for the expression ‘beyond the paint’: letter 439, n. 3.

6. Water mill at Gennep (F 125 / JH 525 ).

7. Plowman and a woman planting potatoes (F 172 / JH 514 ).

8. Avenue of poplars in autumn (F 122 / JH 522 ).

9. This was letter 517.