1. The ‘good rascal’ could be an allusion to the ‘good thief’ on the Cross beside Christ (Robert, with reference to Voltaire).
2. Starry night over the Rhône (F 474 / JH 1592 [2723]), Ploughed fields (‘The furrows’) (F 574 / JH 1586 [2719]) and The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595 [2726]). ‘The poet’s garden’ consisted of two works: The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 468 / JH 1578 [2713]) and a painting of the park that is now lost (cf. the letter sketches in letters 689 and 693 for the composition). See also letter 695, n. 13.
[2723] [2719] [2726] [2713]
3. It is possible that Van Gogh wrote ‘100’ rather than ‘200’.
4. Van Gogh had asked in letter 694 whether he could have his money on Friday.
5. See letter 343, n. 6, for Tripp and Mauve.
6. The precise circumstances of Theo’s contacts with Bague cannot be reconstructed. The art gallery Bague et Cie, at 41 rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, must at any rate have expressed an interest in selling (recent) paintings by Van Gogh (see also letter 702). We may infer from the phrase ‘while not making too much of the two previous consignments, tell Bague that I’m very pleased that he’s bought this study’ that Bague had bought a study from Arles. We do not know which one it was.
Merlhès, on the other hand, suggests that this remark has to do with Theo’s sale on 3 October 1888 of a Parisian self-portrait by Vincent to the dealers Lawrie & Co. in London, together with a Corot landscape, and he assumes that Bague – possibly working with Tripp – acted as the intermediary in this sale. See Merlhès 1989, pp. 71-72 (n. 1); see also in this connection Martin Bailey, ‘Van Gogh’s first sale. A self-portrait in London’, Apollo (March 1996), pp. 20-21.
Athanase Bague and his partner Maurice Gouvet dealt in work by the Barbizon School and the Hague School and were competitors of the firm of Boussod, Valadon & Cie, which only occasionally bought art from them (GRI, Goupil Ledgers). Cf. exhib. cat. Paris 1988, p. 343.
7. In letter 687 of 25 September Van Gogh had enclosed a new order for paint and canvas, specifying ‘5 or even 10 metres of canvas’. From the rest of the letter it emerges that Tasset had sent paint.
8. This must have been the unfinished letter, which is added here as an appendix (ll. 156 ff; see also Arrangement). See letter 692, n. 1, for Gauguin, Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’ [2262].
[2262]
9. In letter 697 Van Gogh had already said of Gauguin’s portrait: ‘the flesh in the shadows is lugubriously tinged with blue’.
10. For Meryon’s depressive episodes see letter 621, n. 9.
11. See letter 692, n. 1, for Bernard, Self-portrait with portrait of Gauguin [2261].
[2261]
12. For these negresses see letter 697, n. 6.
13. Van Gogh’s mother (after a photograph) (F 477 / JH 1600 [2729]). See letter 678, n. 16, for the photograph on which Van Gogh based his painting.
[2729]
14. It is possible that Van Gogh wrote ‘2 3’ (to mean ‘a few’; cf. letter 689, l. 114: ‘deux trois jours’ (two or three days)) rather than ‘23’.
15. Thérèse Balmoissière.
16. Starry night over the Rhône (F 474 / JH 1592 [2723]) and Ploughed fields (‘The furrows’) (F 574 / JH 1586 [2719]) both measure 72.5 x 92 cm.
[2723] [2719]
17. The white orchard (F 403 / JH 1378 [2576]) and The harvest (F 412 / JH 1440 [2621]).
[2576] [2621]
18. This must have been a letter for Gauguin; see also Arrangement.
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