1. This Belgian is Eugène Boch. His sister Anna was a member of the society of artists Les Vingt in Brussels from 1886 to 1894. For this group see letter 580, n. 6.
2. In letter 669 Van Gogh reported Boch’s plan to go to the Borinage; see further letter 693, n. 1.
3. See letter 669, n. 16, for Boch’s departure from Arles. The plan for Boch to go and live with Theo came to nothing, as we learn from a letter to Theo from Willemien: ‘Haven’t you found a housemate yet? Pity that that Belgian didn’t come’ (FR b2275, 19 October 1888). Boch did, however, visit Theo (see letter 693).
Van Gogh knew the head of Dante from Bargue’s Cours de dessin – he had drawn it in October 1880 (see letter 159, n. 7). His knowledge of Dante may have been based on what Carlyle wrote in On heroes, hero-worship and the heroic in history (in ‘The hero as poet’ he saw him as a prophetic poet (Carlyle 1993, pp. 83-85)), or on what Cochin said of him in his article on Boccaccio (‘Boccace d’après ses oeuvres et les témoignages contemporains’) – at any rate it is evident from a letter written later in the month that Vincent was familiar with this article (see letter 683, n. 15).
4. See letter 632, n. 12, for Delacroix, Christ asleep during the tempest [61].
[61]
5. Eugène Boch (‘The poet’) (F 462 / JH 1574 [2710]). Van Gogh described his plan for this painting in letter 663.
[2710]
6. A reference to Alphonse Daudet, L’immortel (1888): ‘Fame... I have tasted it two or three times, I know what it is... look, when you’re smoking you sometimes happen to pick up your cigar by the wrong end. Well, then, that’s fame. A good cigar with the lit end and the ash in your mouth...’ (La gloire... j’en ai goûté deux ou trois fois, je sais ce que c’est... tiens, il t’arrive en fumant de prendre ton cigare à rebours, eh bien! c’est ça la gloire. Un bon cigare dans la bouche par le côté du feu et de la cendre...). See Daudet 1986-1994, vol. 3, p. 712 (chapter 3). Van Gogh quotes the sentence again in letter 683, n. 26.
7. See letter 583, n. 9, for Daudet’s Tartarin de Tarascon and Tartarin sur les Alpes.
8. Jean Béraud was known for his detailed paintings of scenes of fashionable Parisian life.
9. See letter 568, n. 3, for Voltaire’s Candide.
10. Theo had received the second consignment from Arles in mid-August; see letter 660, n. 1.
11. Mousmé (F 431 / JH 1519 [2671]).
[2671]
12. The harvest (F 412 / JH 1440 [2621]).
[2621]
13. Fishing boats at sea (F 417 / JH 1453 [2633]). The work measures 44 x 53 cm. Van Gogh calls it ‘the small seascape’ to distinguish it from the other seascape in the batch: Fishing boats at sea (F 415 / JH 1452 [2632]), which is 51 x 64 cm.
[2633] [2632]
14. Newly mown lawn with a weeping tree (F 428 / JH 1499 [0]).
[0]
15. The drawing after the above seascape is Fishing boats at sea (F 1430b / JH 1541 [2688]). Vincent had sent it to Theo on 8 August (see letter 657).
[2688]
16. The new portrait is Patience Escalier (‘The peasant’) (F 444 / JH 1563 [2705]); see letter 671.
Van Gogh chose frames for the paintings he wanted to hang in the Yellow House in woods that were in keeping with the ambience and furnishing of the rooms: walnut for Gauguin’s room, and oak and deal for his own. See exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1995-2, pp. 168-170, and Dorn 1990, pp. 238-240 (n. 52). The paintings whose frames are mentioned in the correspondence are Patience Escalier (‘The peasant’) (F 444 / JH 1563 [2705]) and Eugène Boch (‘The poet’) (F 462 / JH 1574 [2710]) in the present letter, and also Public garden with round clipped shrub and weeping tree (F 468 / JH 1578 [2713]), a painting of the park, now lost, Ploughed fields (‘The furrows’) (F 574 / JH 1586 [2719]), The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595 [2726]) and Entrance to the public garden (F 566 / JH 1585 [2718]). See letters 683, 687, 699 and 767.
[2705] [2705] [2710] [2713] [2719] [2726] [2718]
17. For Ary Scheffer, Saint Augustine and Saint Monica, see letter 41, n. 8. The one in the Louvre (Ill. 2239 [2239].) is the only one of the five versions of the painting that Van Gogh could have seen; he must therefore be referring to this work. See also Ewals 1987, pp. 303-305.
[2239]
18. Delacroix made two paintings of the imprisoned poet Torquato Tasso entitled Tasso in the Hospital of St Anne in Ferrara: one in 1824 (Zurich, Galerie Nathan) and one in 1839 (Winterthur, Oskar Reinhart Collection). Ill. 77 [77]. Since both paintings were then in private collections, Van Gogh must have been thinking of a print; in letter 726 he mentions a lithograph after the work. See Johnson 1981-1989, vol. 1, pp. 91-93, cat. no. 106, and vol. 3, pp. 88-89, cat. no. 268.
[77]
19. Macknight had left Fontvieille for Moret-sur-Loing; see letter 669, n. 15. Evidently Boch intended to visit him.
20. Boch turned 33 on 1 September, so he was only two years younger than Van Gogh. By the time he wrote letter 674 Van Gogh had found out his age.
21. Macknight and Boch stayed at the Café de l’Alcazar in Fontvieille; see letter 650, n. 20.
22. Van Gogh says that he pays 45 francs ‘for my lodging alone’; in other words his meals were not included in that sum. He paid 1 franc a night for his room in the Café de la Gare, and 15 francs a month for the Yellow House. See letters 602 and 611.
23. For Degroux’s Saying grace [135], see letter 143, n. 16. For the (destroyed?) oil sketch from Eugène and Anna Boch’s collection, see exhib. cat. Ypres 1995, pp. 104-105, cat. no. 108.
[135]
24. There are two known portraits of Reid, both of which Theo had: F 270 / JH 1207 and F 343 / JH 1250 [2550]. Van Gogh must mean the latter work which, like the portrait of Eugène Boch, (F 462 / JH 1574 [2710]), is a head and shoulders portrait.
[2550] [2710]
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