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719 To Theo van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 11 or Monday, 12 November 1888.

metadata
No. 719 (Brieven 1990 724, Complete Letters 562)
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Arles, Sunday, 11 or Monday, 12 November 1888

Source status
Original manuscript

Location
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b609 V/1962

Date
Vincent thanks Theo for sending 100 francs, which must have been the second part of his November allowance. Normally this fact would prompt a dating to about 11 November, but because Vincent’s letter of 10 November does not mention the money (letter 718), we have dated the present letter to Sunday, 11 or Monday, 12 November 1888.

Ongoing topic
Consignment of studies to be exchanged with the group of painters in Pont-Aven (698)

Sketch

  1. Sketch after Charles Laval, Self-portrait (F - / JH -), letter sketch

original text
 1r:1
Mon cher Theo,
Merci beaucoup de ton envoi de 100 francs et de ta lettre.
Ce qui te fera plaisir c’est que j’ai une lettre de Jet Mauve pour dire qu’elle nous remercie du tableau.1
Une lettre très bien et où elle parle d’autrefois. Je vais y répondre et j’enverrai encore quelques croquis dans la lettre.
Ce qui te fera aussi plaisir c’est que nous avons une augmentation pour la collection de portraits d’artistes. Le portrait de Laval par lui-même, extrêmement bien.2

[sketch A]
 1v:2
Aussi une marine de Bernard en échange de toiles de moi.3
Le portrait de Laval est tres crâne, très distingué et sera justement un des tableaux dont tu parles qu’on aura prises avant que les autres n’eussent reconnus le talent.–
Je trouve excellent que tu prennes un Luce.4 A-t-il par hasard son portrait? Cela pour le cas où il n’y aurait rien d’extraordinairement interessant – les portraits sont toujours bons.
Gauguin travaille à une femme nue très originale dans du foin avec des cochons.5 Cela promet de devenir très beau et d’un grand style. Il a fait revenir de Paris un pot magnifique avec 2 tetes de rats.6
C’est un bien grand artiste et un bien excellent ami.
Si jamais tu pouvais prendre un beau Bernard je t’y engage beaucoup. Gauguin en a un de superbe.7
 1v:3
J’ai travaillé à deux toiles.
Un souvenir de notre jardin à Etten avec des choux, des cyprès, des dahlias et des figures.8 puis une Liseuse de romans dans une bibliotheque comme la Lecture Française. Une femme toute verte.9
Gauguin me donne courage d’imaginer et les choses d’imagination certes prennent un caractère plus mysterieux.
L’envoi de Tasset est arrivé avant hier et nous en etions très contents.10
Tasset pourrait il envoyer encore, mais c’est pressé

1 très grand tube Vermillon
  (format comme les grands blanc d’argent)
3 tubes du même format Bleu de Prusse.

Tu nous obligerais infiniment.
Je suis content que Jet Mauve ait écrit et j’ose croire que peu à peu ils y viendront quand meme aux impressionistes.
Poignée de main en pensée et mes compliments à de Haan & Isaacson.

t. à t.
Vincent.

translation
 1r:1
My dear Theo,
Thanks very much for sending me 100 francs and for your letter.
You’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve had a letter from Jet Mauve thanking us for the painting.1
A very nice letter, in which she talks of times gone by. I’ll reply to it and will send another few croquis in the letter.
You’ll also be pleased to know that we have an addition to the collection of artists’ portraits. Laval’s self-portrait, extremely good.2

[sketch A]

 1v:2
Also a seascape by Bernard in exchange for canvases of mine.3
The portrait of Laval is very self-assured, very distinguished, and will be precisely one of the paintings you speak of, which one takes before the others have recognized the talent.
I think it excellent that you’re taking a Luce.4 Does he by any chance have his portrait? That’s in case there’s nothing extraordinarily interesting — portraits are always good.
Gauguin’s working on a very original nude woman in some hay with some pigs.5 It promises to be very beautiful, with great style. He’s had a magnificent pot with 2 rats’ heads sent back from Paris.6
He’s a really great artist and a really excellent friend.
If you could ever get a fine Bernard I strongly urge you to do so. Gauguin has a superb one.7  1v:3
I’ve been working on two canvases.
A reminiscence of our garden at Etten with cabbages, cypresses, dahlias and figures.8 Then a Woman reading a novel in a library like the Lecture Française. A completely green woman.9
Gauguin gives me courage to imagine, and the things of the imagination do indeed take on a more mysterious character.
The consignment from Tasset arrived the day before yesterday, and we were very pleased with it.10
Could Tasset also send, but it’s needed urgently:

1 very large tube of Vermilion
  (same size as the large flake whites)
3 tubes, the same size, of Prussian Blue.

We’d be infinitely obliged.
I’m pleased that Jet Mauve has written, and I dare to believe that little by little they’ll come round to the Impressionists after all.
A handshake in thought, and my regards to De Haan and Isaäcson.

Ever yours,
Vincent.
notes
1. Van Gogh had sent Theo Pink peach trees (‘Souvenir de Mauve’) (F 394/ JH 1379 ) to give to Mauve’s widow in memory of her late husband; see letter 590, n. 5. Willemien van Gogh wrote on 23 December 1888 to Theo and Jo Bonger about Pink peach trees: ‘Israëls had seen Vincent’s painting at Jet’s and had said, he is a clever lad!’ (FR b2387).
2. Charles Laval, Self-portrait, 1888 (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 2247 . Laval sent this self-portrait, reproduced in the letter sketch, in exchange for a study from the batch Van Gogh sent to Pont-Aven. It is not known which work Laval chose, but it must have been one of the following: ‘Red sunset’, Garden with flowers (F 578 / JH 1538 ) and an unidentified work (see letter 698, n. 1). Later Van Gogh reserved his Self-portrait (F 501 / JH 1634 ) for him (see letter 736), possibly because he found his study of too little value to exchange for Laval’s self-portrait, which he admired greatly; see also letter 800.
3. This seascape by Bernard is not known. It emerges from letter 716 that Bernard had chosen two studies from Van Gogh’s consignment (in addition to Quay with sand barges (F 449 / JH 1558 ) in exchange for his self-portrait; see letter 697). It is not known which two he took of the three works mentioned above (n. 2).
4. It is not known whether Theo actually bought a work by Maximilien Luce. The two paintings by Luce that are now in the Van Gogh Museum were both painted after Theo’s death and so could not have belonged to his collection. Neither the account book nor the insurance policies issued to Jo van Gogh-Bonger in 1892 and 1893 mention any work by Luce. See Account book 2002, FR b4553 and b4557.
5. Paul Gauguin, Woman with pigs (In the full heat of the day), 1888 (W320/W301) (private collection). Ill. 2249 .
6. This ‘magnificent pot with 2 rats’ heads’ by Gauguin is lost; it was reproduced in Still life with a fan, 1887-1888 (W259/W377) (Paris, Musée d’Orsay) (Ill. 114 ), and in the Portrait of Mrs Alexandre Kohler (W258/W314) (Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, Chester Dale Collection). A sketch of it appears in the Album Briant (Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins). See Wildenstein 2001, p. 358. The sculpture was first at Theo’s, as emerges from a letter written by Gauguin to Schuffenecker on 25 October 1888: ‘So when you have time, make up a package with the horned pot that is at Van Gogh’s, and a little matt pot with Cleopatra that is at your place and send them to me. We’re in a rather nice little house here, and I should like to have a little pottery to look at.’ (Quand vous aurez le temps faites donc un paquet avec le pot à cornes qui est chez Van Gog et un petit pot mat qui est chez vous avec Cléopâtre et envoyez-les moi. Nous sommes ici dans une petite maison assez gentille et je voudrais avoir devant mes yeux un peu de poterie.) See Merlhès 1989, p. 127.
7. For Bernard’s painting Breton women in the meadow , which Gauguin had taken to Arles, see letter 712, n. 4.
8. Reminiscence of the garden at Etten (F 496 / JH 1630 ). Here Van Gogh calls it ‘garden at Etten’ and in letter 723 ‘garden at Nuenen’.
9. Woman reading a novel (F 497 / JH 1632 ). Van Gogh is probably referring here to some sort of library, of which there were many in those days, such as the ‘cabinets de lecture’ (reading rooms). Cf. Françoise Parent-Lardeur, Les cabinets de lecture, la lecture publique à Paris sous la restauration. Paris 1982. Van Gogh’s mention of the ‘Lecture Française’ could also allude to the title of a painting (cf. his Parisian novels).
10. In letter 710 of 22 October, Van Gogh had ordered new canvas and paint; in letter 713 Theo wrote that Tasset would send what Vincent had requested as soon as possible.