2. From the rest of the letter it can be deduced that Theo had sent Gauguin’s reply to ‘the more clear-cut proposal’ (see letters 621 and 623) to Vincent. Gauguin wrote about it to Emile Schuffenecker: ‘I almost said yes’ (j’ai répondu presque oui). See Merlhès 1989, p. 68. Later in the present letter it transpires that Gauguin had an alternative plan for a society of artists headed by Theo.

3. Theo had wired 50 francs on Sunday, 10 June (623).

4. Van Gogh had discussed the quality of Tasset’s canvas in letters 610 and 621. See for Tasset’s standard canvas, on which Van Gogh also worked in Saint-Rémy: Hendriks and Van Tilborgh 2001, pp. 150-151.

5. In June-July 1888 Theo staged an exhibition of ten landscapes which Monet had painted in Antibes (on the Mediterranean coast near Cannes). Theo bought them for 11,900 francs and contracted to pay Monet 50 percent of the resale profit. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1999, p. 111; the invitation has survived (FR b1497). La Revue Indépendante, vol. 8 (juillet 1888), no. 21, p. 154 reviewed it, but Theo was not really happy with the article. See Wildenstein 1996, vol. 1, pp. 241-244, and cat. nos. 1158?, 1167, 1171, 1175, 1179, 1181, 1187, 1191, 1192?, 1193, and Correspondance Pissarro 1980-1991, vol. 2, p. 239.

6. Tersteeg was originally going to go to Paris in May (letter 589); from the present letter, however, it emerges that his visit actually took place in the first half of June.

7. In letter 628 Van Gogh says that Maupassant had been to the Monet exhibition. Theo must have met him on that occasion.

8. ‘Au bord de l’eau’ is an erotic poem about a young couple who enjoy intense physical love, heedlessly at first; later, though, they realize that they are ‘afflicted by the sort of love one dies from / and that [their] life drained away through all [their] senses’ (frappés de l’amour dont on meurt / et que par tous [leurs] sens s’écoulait [leur] vie). From that moment on they surrender utterly to the ‘fatal coupling’ (accouplement mortel), knowing that in so doing they are hastening their deaths. See Des vers. Paris 1880, pp. 41-57. The poem caused an uproar; Flaubert had to offer his pupil protection. This incident meant that Maupassant’s name became widely known.

Des vers is dedicated: ‘To Gustave Flaubert / to the famous and paternal friend / for whom I feel great affection, / to the perfect master / whom I admire above all others’ (A Gustave Flaubert / à l’illustre et paternel ami / que j’aime de toute ma tendresse, / à l’irréprochable maître / que j’admire avant tous). This is followed by a letter from Flaubert, dated 19 February 1880. In this letter he puts heart into the young author, asserting that many great writers suffered from the narrow-mindedness of the public: ‘Earth has its limits, but there is no end to human stupidity’ (La terre a des limites, mais la bêtise humaine est infinie.)

9. See letter 623, n. 4 for Gauguin’s plan. Van Gogh’s reference to Jewish bankers later in the letter probably relates to Gauguin’s backers, Henri Cottu and Albert Dauprat. Cottu was a director of the Compagnie du Canal de Panama, and Dauprat was a sociologist associated with the magazine La Science Sociale. See Wildenstein 2001, p. 606.

10. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English artists with religious-mystical tendencies, founded in 1848 by seven young artists and critics, among them Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Their work harked back to Raphael’s predecessors. The group split up quite quickly because the founders chose different artistic directions. We do not know where Van Gogh got the figure of 12 artists.

11. Van Gogh means Gabriel Delarebeyrette, a Parisian art dealer who dealt primarily in Monticelli’s work. See letter 600, n. 14, for the nickname ‘La Roquette’.

Van Gogh accused Reid of being too interested in his own gain (letter 589) and too little concerned with the artists’ interests; his remark that Reid did the same thing as Gabriel Delarebeyrette may relate to this.

12. As well as the two drawings mentioned below, this consignment probably included Farmhouse (F 1478 / JH 1444

). See letter 623, n. 10.

13. The drawing Wheat stacks (F 1425 / JH 1441

) served as a study for the painting Wheat stacks (F 425 / JH 1442

14. Vincent must have sent Theo the drawing The harvest (F 1483 / JH 1439

). Shortly afterwards he sent the other drawing of the same subject, The harvest (F 1484 / JH 1438

), to his sister Willemien (see letter 626). The no. 30 canvas is The harvest (F 412 / JH 1440

15. Still life with coffee pot (F 410 / JH 1426

16. This friend was the Belgian painter Eugène Boch, whom Macknight invited to join him in Fontvieille in a letter of 19 April 1888. We do not know exactly when he arrived. He went back to Belgium via Paris on 4 September 1888 (see letters 674 and 693). Boch first went to Algeria in 1886 and subsequently went back several times. See exhib. cat. Saarbrücken 1971, p. 48.

Macknight left Paris in the spring of 1886. He headed first for the south of France and later that year for the Algerian oasis of Ghardaia. See Bailey 2007, p. 30.

17. Van Gogh often mistook the nationality of the Danish painter Mourier-Petersen.

Jules Verne’s Le docteur Ox (1874) is part of the series ‘Voyages extraordinaires’. It is a comic tale set in an imaginary Flemish village and the central character is Doctor Ox, a generous, passionate and reckless man.

18. See for Mourier-Petersen’s ‘nervous disorder’: letter 610, n. 3.

19. After ‘bon’ (good) Van Gogh crossed out ‘pour autant que je le connais’ (as far as I know him).

20. A legacy had made it possible for Russell to devote himself exclusively to art since 1879-1880. See Galbally 1977, p. 3. Whether and, if so, what Russell lost money on in Paris has not been discovered.

21. Van Gogh means a large, luxurious studio with exotic attributes. See for Gérôme’s studio: Ackerman 1986.

22. Gauguin married a Danish woman, Mette Gad, in Paris on 22 November 1873; they had five children. In November 1884 the family went to live in Copenhagen, but Gauguin could not settle there and went back to Paris in June 1885.

23. Gauguin wrote in a letter to Theo that he owed the stockbroker Eugène Mirtil 300 francs and that he had offered him one of the paintings that Theo had on commission (GAC 3). We learn from two subsequent letters from Gauguin to Theo that Mirtil did indeed accept a painting in settlement (GAC 5 and GAC 7).