1. This letter of the day before was letter 687.

2. Theo had received this study of the public gardens, Newly mown lawn with a weeping tree (F 428 / JH 1499 ), with the second consignment of paintings (see letter 660, n. 1).

3. The enclosed sketch is The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 1465 / JH 1583). There is a similar letter sketch in letter 693 to Eugène Boch. The painting after which the drawing and the letter sketch of this ‘round cedar or cypress bush’ were done is not known. Soon after this Van Gogh described the work as ‘the garden with the round bush and the oleanders’ (694).

4. The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 468 / JH 1578 ).

5. Van Gogh had associated his painting of the park with these poets before, prompted by an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes. See letter 683, n. 15.

6. Van Gogh wrote this in letter 686.

7. Van Gogh was working on Paul Eugène Milliet (‘The lover’) (F 473 / JH 1588 ); see letter 687.

8. See letter 687 for this paint order.

9. See letter 589, n. 19, for Seurat’s large canvases.

10. At this point Van Gogh in any event counted the two no. 30 canvases of sunflowers, Sunflowers in a vase (F 456 / JH 1561 ) and Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562 ), as part of this series, which he intended for the decoration of the Yellow House; see letter 677. He probably also regarded the paintings for which he was having frames made as part of the decoration. For this see letter 673, n. 16.

11. Ploughed fields (‘The furrows’) (F 574 / JH 1586 ).

a. Read: ‘je pourrais faire maintenant’.

12. A mocking reference to a foreigner who speaks French with a strong accent. In letter 184 Van Gogh quoted a character in a Balzac novel like this, and in letter 623 he imitated Mourier-Petersen’s pronunciation.

13. See letter 631 for Vincent and Theo’s visit to Guillaumin’s studio.

14. See letter 687, n. 14, for these drawings Bernard sent.

15. Laval had been with Gauguin in Pont-Aven since July 1888. They had been together on Martinique: letter 623, n. 3.