1. The paintings Van Gogh brought with him from Nuenen were an unknown ‘mill’, Avenue of poplars (F 45 / JH 959 ) and Still life with Bible (F 117 / JH 946 ). See letter 542, nn. 3-5.

2. One of the portraits was probably Portrait of an old man (F 205 / JH 971 ). The second portrait may have been one of the portraits of women referred to in letter 550. Cf. letter 552, n. 9.

3. Van Gogh had enrolled at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten on Monday, 18 January. The Certificate of Registration only refers to his enrolment in the evening ‘Classical Statues’ drawing class (FR b1495; illustrated in cat. Amsterdam 2001, p. 14, ill. 5). There is no record of his having attended the ‘Figure’ painting class that Verlat taught during the day, but that course was virtually at an end anyway, as we learn from letter 555 (Antwerp, Bibliotheek Koninklijke Academie, Register 1885-1891, inv. no. 289). His fellow student Victor Hageman recounted his recollections of Van Gogh’s arrival at the Academy to the biographer Louis Piérard; Van Gogh burst into the Academy like a bomb, and his clothes – a blue stockman’s smock and a fur cap – and his furious manner of painting and drawing caused a sensation. See Louis Piérard, ‘Van Gogh à Anvers’, Les Marges 13 (1914), pp. 47-53 and Verzamelde brieven 1973, vol. 3, pp. 159-162.

4. The history painter Frans Kasper Huibrecht Vinck studied with Henri Leys around 1866 and was very much influenced by him. He was an instructor at the Academy, associated with at least the grade three course, of which the subject ‘Shaded drawing of ornaments of different styles and of the bust’ (‘Dessin ombré d’ornements de différents style et de buste’) was a part. The Jaarlijksch Verslag lists E. Dujardin as the teacher for these drawing lessons, but it can be inferred from letter 555 that Van Gogh had spoken to Vinck himself. See Koninklijke Academie der Schoone Kunsten te Antwerpen. Academisch Jaar 1885-1886. Jaarlijksch Verslag. Antwerp 1886, and cat. Amsterdam 2001, p. 13 (n. 22).

5. These two women were discussed in letter 550.

6. This passage may have been prompted in part by reading ‘Sur une Vénus’ by Guy de Maupassant in the most recent Gil Blas, that of 12 January 1886 (we know from letter 552 that Van Gogh read this magazine). In it Maupassant wrote lyrically about the Syracuse Venus (3rd century BC.), with her voluptuous curves: ‘Never has the human form seemed more wonderful yet more disturbing to me … It is at the same time a symbol and the faithful expression of a reality … It is a woman’s body which expresses all the true poetry of a caress’ (Jamais la forme humaine ne m’est apparue plus admirable et plus troublante ... Elle est en même temps un symbole et l’expression exacte d’une réalité ... C’est un corps de femme qui exprime toute la poésie réelle de la caresse). See also letter 557, n. 10, and Sund 1992, pp. 150-152, where the classical statue and Maupassant’s response to it are linked to some of Van Gogh’s drawings of this period.