1. In view of what follows this means: ‘in a depressed mood’ (cf. l. 58); it must have been exacerbated by the fact that Van Gogh felt physically weak because he had had virtually no hot food (l. 66) and, as he says a week or two later, his appetite was suppressed during this period (letter 550).

2. A painting of Het Steen Castle on the Scheldt in Antwerp is not known, although two drawings of it (possibly preliminary sketches) have survived: View of Het Steen (F 1350 / JH 976 and F 1351 / JH 977).

3. See for this sale of paintings letter 547, n. 11.

4. See for this lottery letter 547, n. 10.

5. This work is not known.

6. Van Gogh was in Brussels from early October 1880 until 12 April 1881. See letters 159-165.

7. In the end this came to nothing.

8. Mrs van Gogh and her daughter Willemien were evidently staying in Leiderdorp with Anna and Joan van Houten-Van Gogh and their two daughters Sara and Annie.

9. See for the frictions surrounding Van Gogh’s departure from his parents’ house letter 490, nn. 8 and 9.

10. Andreas Pauwels, the priest in Nuenen, had frustrated Van Gogh’s endeavours by forbidding his Catholic parishioners to model for him. See letter 531.

11. Jean François Portaels, Paul Delaroche, c. 1850 (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten). Ill. 1220 .

12. Paul Delaroche.

13. Van Gogh could have read about Courbet’s ‘caprices burlesques’ in Silvestre’s Histoire des artistes vivants français et étrangers (see Silvestre, Histoire, pp. 242-277 (quotation on p. 247).

14. Van Gogh is also referring here to his own change of heart about Delaroche, whom he had previously greatly admired.