1. Van Rappard was working on Workers at the Ruimzicht brickyard (Utrecht, Centraal Museum). Ill. 331 . This large work measures 183 x 300 cm. The sketch of it that he sent Van Gogh is not known.

2. Van Rappard did not act on this suggestion.

3. The lithograph The potato eaters (F 1661 / JH 737 ) after The potato eaters (F 82 / JH 764 ).

4. The potato eaters (F 78 / JH 734 ).

5. From the end of the letter it is clear that Van Gogh enclosed sketches after drawings of figures, but we do not know which they were. On the basis of the subject (figures that ‘are doing something’ (l. 304)), and because of their small size (17.5 x 10.5 cm) Woman standing near a ditch (F 1292 / JH 882) and Man loading a cart (F 1335 / JH 883) would seem to qualify, but they have not been folded, which makes it unlikely that they were ever in a standard envelope, and their date is uncertain.

6. See for these paintings of cottages: letter 513, n. 1.

7. Over the past months Van Gogh had acquired four prints by Léon Augustin Lhermitte: Les bûcherons (letter 484), Hirondelles ou le jardinage (letter 496 and 500), Le labourage (496) and Les amoureux ou Idylle (letter 502).

8. See for this Exposition Eugène Delacroix: letter 461, n. 2.

9. Theo was evidently trying to bring his brother round to more modern ideas by way of these artists. He particularly admired Raffaëlli and Monet; moreover on 7 April 1885 he had sold his first Monet for Boussod, Valadon & Cie; later in the eighteen-eighties Theo gradually dealt in more and more works by both these artists. See Richard Thomson’s ‘Theo van Gogh. An honest broker’ in exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 60-148.

10. Van Gogh must be referring to his comment in letter 526: ‘does one learn it from the plaster statue copiers and at the art academy. I believe: not’.

11. Vincent had also previously written to Theo about ‘les paysans chez eux’ (‘the peasants at home’) (letter 493).

12. The letter sketch Two women digging (F - / JH 879) is after the painting of the same name F 97 / JH 876 .