1. Gustave Geffroy, ‘Bismarck’ appeared in Le Figaro, Supplément Littéraire (18 February 1888), pp. 25-26. Geffroy writes about Prince Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen as a political figure and recounts some anecdotes from his biography. See for Geffroy’s article ‘Dix tableaux de Claude Monet’ in La Justice 9 (17 June 1888): letter 629, n. 1.
2. An allusion to the often high-flown style in the Symbolist manifestos.
3. Seated Zouave (F 1443 / JH 1485 [2654]).
[2654]
4. Emile Bernard, Brothel scene, with the dedication ‘à mon ami Vincent ce croquis bête’ (to my friend Vincent, this silly sketch), 1888 (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 2322 [2322].
[2322]
5. Emile Bernard, The acrobats, 1887 (Montevideo, Uruguay, Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Juan Manuel Blanes). Ill. 2323 [2323]. The painting is dedicated to Vincent, but went back to Bernard later. See Luthi 1982, p. 14, cat. no. 65.
[2323]
6. On the back of the drawing Bernard wrote (accents added by us):

I
It’s in a faraway corner,
A dark tavern saddened
By the feeble light of a closed shutter.

The landlady’s a specialist
And sells, as in a quite open trade,
Both drink and flesh...

With a look that displays
All of a heart’s wretchedness,
Each woman, as if at market,

Meat dressed with a flower,
Decked out in silk and gold,
Sells her poor resigned soul.

II
Society, behold your crime.
Man, cast a lenient glance
Upon the whore, this victim.

Woman, who knows full well that everything is a lie,
Longing for nothing now,
Not even the end of life,

Who sees only a great emptiness
Round all her being and her soul,
Love’s sad victim!

– Society, you are wicked
When, for your own Desire, you force
Children under Pleasure’s yoke.

19 June 1888.

I
C’est dans un coin très retiré
Un cabaret sombre qu’attriste
Le jour bas d’un volet tiré.

La marchande est specialiste
Et vend comme en un débit clair
De la boisson et de la chair...

Avec un regard où s’étale
Toute la misère d’un coeur
Chaque femme comme à la halle

La viande qu’habille une fleur
Dans la soie et l’or bien peignée
Vend sa pauvre âme résignée

II
Société voici ton crime.
Homme jette un regard clément
Sur la putain, cette victime.

Femme qui sait bien que tout ment
A qui plus rien ne fait envie
Pas même la fin de la vie,

Qui ne voit qu’un grand vide autour
De tout son être et de son âme
Triste victime de l’amour!

– Société tu es infâme
Quand tu courbes pour ton Désir
Des enfants au joug du Plaisir.
19 Juin 1888.

Although Van Gogh talks about ‘sonnets’, strictly speaking this is not what they are. Cf. exhib. cat. New Brunswick 1988, p. 23.
7. There is no known painted version of Bernard’s Brothel scene [2322].
[2322]
8. It emerges from letter 633 that Van Gogh wanted to exchange the painting Zouave (F 423 / JH 1486 [2655]) with Bernard. Eventually he sent the watercolour Zouave (F 1482 / JH 1487 [2656]) with the dedication ‘A mon cher copain Bernard. Vincent’. A letter from Bernard to his parents tells us that Van Gogh sent this drawing in mid-July: see letter 641.
[2655] [2656]
9. See for Cassagne’s Guide de l’alphabet du dessin: letter 214, n. 2. It was published by Ch. Fouraut et fils, éditeurs, at 47 rue Saint-André des Arts in Paris. Van Gogh needed the book for the drawing lessons he was giving the Zouave Lieutenant Milliet (see letter 628).
a. Read: ‘Les frais de port de Paris’.
b. Read: ‘et cela me chagrine de me dire’.
10. See letter 158, n. 3, for Cassagne’s Guide de l’alphabet du dessin and letter 168, n. 21 for his Traité d’aquarelle, Eléments de perspective, Traité pratique de perspective and La perspective du paysagiste.
Madame Latouche had a ‘magasin de couleurs fines et tableaux modernes’ (shop selling fine colours and modern paintings) at 34 rue Lafayette. She had run the business alone since the death of her husband, the painter Louis Latouche, in 1884. She did framing and lining and exhibited the work of the Impressionists in her shop window. Her business was taken over by Contet in 1886. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 332 (n. 24) and Distel 1989, pp. 33-34. Gauguin had paintings lined there (see letter 776, n. 30). The plaster cast of a Dante mask from Van Gogh’s collection (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum) has a Latouche label on it. See cat. Amsterdam 2011.
There were several art shops in rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, but since Van Gogh refers to a colourman in this context in letter 657, ‘that man who always has works by [Auguste] Allongé’ is probably Léon Berville, 25 rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. In the address books Berville is the only paint merchant in rue de la Chaussée d’Antin; he is moreover listed in 1886 and 1887 as ‘marchand de tableaux’ (dealer in pictures) (Almanach du commerce de Paris 1886-1888). We learn from an advertisement on the back of the catalogue Musée national du Luxembourg. Peintures, sculptures et dessins de l’école moderne of 1886 that Berville sold ‘all the supplies’ for, among other things, ‘Le Dessin Académique et d’Architecture’ (academic and architectural drawing). There are two drawings from Van Gogh’s Paris period on paper with watermark ‘L. Berville’. See cat. Amsterdam 2001, p. 204.
11. Jules Gérard writes in La chasse au lion (1855): ‘Aged between eight months and a year old, the lion cubs start to attack the flocks of sheep or herds of goats which come to the area surrounding where they live during the day. Sometimes they take on cattle but are still so unskilful that for every one they kill, ten are injured and the father has to intervene. It is only when they reach two that the young lions can kill a horse, a bullock, a camel with a single snap of the jaws to the throat and leap over the two metre high hedges which are supposed to protect the doyars’ (De huit mois à un an, les lionceaux commencent à attaquer les troupeaux de moutons ou de chèvres qui, pendant le jour, viennent dans le voisinage de leur demeure. Quelquefois ils s’en prennent aux boeufs; mais ils sont encore si maladroits, qu’il y a souvent dix blessés pour un mort, et que le père est obligé d’intervenir. Ce n’est qu’à deux ans que les jeunes lions savent étrangler un cheval, un boeuf, un chameau, d’un seul coup de gueule à la gorge, et franchir les haies de deux mètres de haut qui sont réputées protéger les douars) (Paris 1855, p. 31).
12. A reference to Alphonse Daudet’s novels Aventures prodigeuses de Tartarin de Tarascon (1872) and Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885).
13. Bordighera is on the coast of Liguria (northwestern Italy). Hyères is the most southerly town in Provence, 18 km to the east of Toulon; Antibes is on the Côte d’Azur, 20 km south-west of Nice. Monet had painted in both Bordighera and Antibes.
14. Eugène Boch.
15. See for ‘the studio like Gérôme’s’: letter 625, n. 21.
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