1. Taken from L’art du dix-huitième siècle by the De Goncourts: ‘What to do, what to become? One must throw oneself into some subordinate condition, where the door is open to poverty, or die of hunger. One chooses the former and, with the exception of about twenty people who come here every two years to exhibit themselves to fools, the others, equally unknown but perhaps less unfortunate, wear their breastplate at some fencing-master’s, or carry a musket on their shoulder in some regiment or tread the boards in stage costume’ (Que faire, que devenir? Il faut se jeter dans quelques-unes de ces conditions subalternes, dont la porte est ouverte à la misère, ou mourir de faim. On prend le premier parti; et à l’exception d’une vingtaine, qui viennent ici tous les deux ans s’exposer aux bêtes, les autres ignorés, et moins malheureux peut-être, ont le plastron sur la poitrine dans une salle d’armes, ou le mousquet sur l’épaule dans un régiment, ou l’habit de théâtre sur les tréteaux?) (see Goncourt 1881-1914, vol. 1, p. 151, and cf. Goncourt 1948, p. 147).

2. See for the ‘Tiers état’, the lower classes: letter 539.

3. Renier de Greef was a farmer in Nuenen. Like Van Gogh, he lived in district F and modelled for him (RHC, and De Brouwer 1984, p. 111 (with portrait)).

4. Antonie (Toon) de Groot was a labourer in Nuenen; he lived in district F and modelled for Van Gogh (RHC).

5. Ardina (Dien) van der Beek, no occupation, married to Franciscus Raaijmakers, modelled for Van Gogh. She lived in district E-F (RHC).

6. Van Gogh bases this on what Sensier wrote about Millet’s stay in Le Havre in 1845: ‘He did, in fact, everything: portraits of master mariners, shipowners, harbour masters and workers, even sailors. Amongst others, he painted a señora in a pink and blue silk dress reclining nonchantly on a sofa, specially commissioned by a captain. This painting delighted everyone. Millet was all the rage for a while... A public exhibition of his work was arranged in Le Havre and he did a few more portraits. Finally, when not without difficulty he had got together 900 francs, he left for Paris with his wife’ (Il fit, en effet, de tout: portraits de capitaines au long cours, d’armateurs, de commandants ou employés du port, voir même de matelots. Il peignit, entre autres, une señora en costume de soie rose et bleue, étendue nonchalamment sur un canapé, qu’un capitaine lui avait recommandée tout spécialement. Cette peinture plut à tous. Millet eut un instant de vogue ... On organisa une exposition publique de ses oeuvres au Havre, et il fit encore quelques portraits. Enfin, quand il eut, non sans peine, rassemblé 900 francs, il partit pour Paris avec sa femme) (see Sensier, La vie et l’oeuvre de J.F. Millet (1881), pp. 84, 87; also quoted in Burty 1877, p. 282. Cf. in this context letter 542.

7. The priest Andreas Pauwels and the sacristan Johannes Schafrat. Van Gogh rented his studio from Schafrat.

8. This must have been a letter in which Theo had asked about Mrs van Gogh’s health in response to letter 540.

a. Means: ‘kalm’ (calm).

9. Van de Loo lived in Eindhoven.