3. Van Gogh had intended Sunflowers in a vase (F 456 / JH 1561

) and Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562

), no. 30 canvases, for Gauguin’s room. See letters 677 and 743. Later he added the four pictures of the ‘poet’s garden’. See letters 695, n. 13 and 709, nn. 6 and 7.

4. An allusion to Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème; see letter 657, n. 17. Vincent had already recommended Loti’s Le mariage de Loti to his sister (letter 590), and she was also familiar with his Pêcheur d’Islande (FR b2275).

5. The night café (F 463 / JH 1575

6. Vincent had sent Theo the drawing of The night café (F 1463 / JH 1576

); see letter 677.

7. On 19 October 1888 Willemien wrote to Theo and told him that she got great pleasure from the Japanese prints. There must have been a considerable number, since she said that she had given fifteen or so to a friend (FR b2275).

8. Although Van Gogh says here that he doesn’t need any Japanese prints, he had asked Theo that same day to send him prints to hang in his studio (see letter 677).

9. The mask that Vincent and Theo had in Paris is no longer in the estate. It was probably of the primitive Shinto goddess Okame or Otafuku, whose full name is Ame no Uzume no Mikoto (the goddess of mirth). Her plump, rosy cheeked, laughing maiden’s face and well fed look symbolize prosperity. With thanks to Tsukasa Kōdera. The mask, from the Kyogen theatre, was popular in Japan and probably sold in large quantities. Ill. 2305

. Cf. Louis Gonse, L’Art japonais. Paris 1883, pl. xi, no. 6 (between pp. 82-83).

10. Assuming Willemien actually did take a painting, two works from the Arles period qualify: Sprig of almond blossom in a glass with a book (F 393 / JH 1362

), which Van Gogh said in letter 590 he had intended for her, and Orchard bordered by cypresses (F 554 / JH 1388

). We know that Willemien had both these paintings. See Account book 2002, p. 20 (n. 33). She might equally, of course, have chosen a Paris work: according to De la Faille A public garden with people strolling (F 225 / JH 1110) and Edge of a wheatfield with poppies (F 310a / JH 1273) once belonged to Willemien.

11. Cottages in Saintes-Maries (F 419 / JH 1465

12. Café terrace at night (F 467 / JH 1580

). The pavement café is the Grand Café du Forum in the place du Forum in Arles.

13. His nocturnal painting in Arles prompted a report in the local press: ‘Mr Vincent, an Impressionist painter, works, we are told, in the evening, by the light of the gaslamps, in one of our squares’ (M. Vincent, peintre impressionniste travaille, nous assure-t-on, le soir, à la lueur des becs de gaz, sur l’une de nos places.) See ‘Chronique artistique et musicale’, L’Homme de Bronze, 30 September 1888. See also Dorn 1990, pp. 85, 266 (n. 178).

14. Self-portrait (F 476/ JH 1581

15. For Maupassant’s Bel-ami see letter 568, n. 11. Van Gogh is referring to the description of the boulevards of Paris on a summer evening at the beginning of the book. There is no mention of a starry sky, but Maupassant does describe the brightly-lit café’s Duroy, the central character, walks past: ‘The big cafés, full of people, overflowed out on to the pavements, displaying their clientele of drinkers in the harsh, bright lights of their illuminated facades’. (Les grands cafés, pleins de monde, débordaient sur le trottoir, étalant leur public de buveurs sous la lumière éclatante et crue de leur devanture illuminée.) He also pictures the ‘sandy paths, lit by electric light’ (allées bien sablées, éclairées à la lumière électrique) and the ‘floodlit façade’ (façade illuminée) of the cabaret Les Folies-Bergère. See Maupassant 1987, pp. 199, 205-206. Cf. also Sund 1992, pp. 193-194.

16. Mrs van Gogh – who was now 69 – had given Willemien the photograph to take to Paris (FR b2421). Ill. 2244

. Vincent received it soon after this (see letter 685). He made the painting Van Gogh’s mother (F 477 / JH 1600

) from it in October 1888 (see letter 699, n. 13).