1. Reminiscence of the garden at Etten (F 496 / JH 1630 ). Here Van Gogh calls the garden the ‘garden at Nuenen’; in letters 719 and 720 he spoke of it as the ‘garden at Etten’.

2. Joseph Roulin and his wife Augustine had two sons and one daughter: Armand (17), Camille (11) and Marcelle (4 months). The head of Roulin previously painted by Van Gogh is Joseph Roulin (F 433 / JH 1524 ), dating from the end of July or beginning of August 1888.

3. Van Gogh’s ‘sower in question’ refers to Sower with setting sun (F 450 / JH 1627 ), of which he had made a sketch in his last letter to Theo (722). Assuming that ‘I too’ is a reaction to what Theo had written to him in response to this sketch, ‘the first one’ must refer to the first painting he made of a sower in Arles, Sower with setting sun (F 422 / JH 1470 ), made around mid-June, which Theo had had since mid-August. It is not likely that he is referring here to Sower (F 494 / JH 1617 ). To be sure, he had also made a sketch of that painting for Theo (in letter 714), but that was a much less ambitious painting than F 422.

4. For this proverb, taken from Numa Roumestan, see letter 683, n. 27. A month later Van Gogh mentions the novel again (see letter 736), which could mean that he had just re-read Numa Roumestan.

a. Read: ‘de ne pas avoir à vendre’.

5. This still life is lost; see letter 722, n. 10.

6. Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh painting sunflowers, 1888 (W326/W296) (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Ill. 115 .

7. These landscapes probably included The blue trees (W319/W311), which appears in the background of the above-mentioned portrait of Van Gogh and in Portrait of Mrs Roulin (W327/W298). Near Arles (W323/W309) and Farms in the vicinity of Arles (W324/W310) are also thought to have been among the landscapes Gauguin was working on in early December. See exhib. cat. Chicago 2001, p. 222 and Wildenstein 2001, pp. 537, 539-540.

8. For Gauguin’s Washerwomen on the bank of a canal and Washerwomen , see letter 722, n. 9.

9. At the beginning of June, Theo had sent 50 francs to Gauguin, who had promised him work in return (see letter 623, n. 1). Bernard’s mother, Héloïse Bernard-Bodin, had brought a consignment of paintings by Gauguin from Pont-Aven to Paris (letter 704, n. 1), and Gauguin had heard from Bernard that she had kept the drawings intended for Theo. In a letter from the second half of November, Gauguin had therefore asked Bernard to put things to rights. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 284.

10. There were numerous portraits in circulation of the writing duo Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian. The latter had dark hair (See Nouveau dictionnaire de biographie alsacienne, no. 9. Strasbourg 1986, p. 833).

11. Regarding Erckmann-Chatrian’s Madame Thérèse and L’ami Fritz, see letter 55, n. 24. The novel Histoire d’un sous-maitre (1871) is the story of a young teacher in a village in the Alsace.

12. Regarding the artists’ society Les Vingt, see letter 580, n. 6. Gauguin’s letter to Octave Maus, in which he accepts the invitation to exhibit his work, is dated ‘Nov. 1888’. He informs Theo himself of his commitment – this was evidently the letter that Gauguin intended to write ‘tomorrow’ (l. 27). See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 291, 294; Merlhès dated it to some time between 4 and 7 December.

13. Gauguin wanted to travel to Copenhagen to visit his wife, Mette, and their five children, as emerges from a letter he wrote to Mette at the end of June 1889: ‘For me it was a question of going to see them [= the children] over 6 months ago; (all of a sudden) you people in Copenhagen, you thought it wasn’t responsible to go to that sort of expense’ (Il était question pour moi d’aller les voir il y a plus de 6 mois (tout d’un coup) vous avez trouvé vous autres de Copenhague que ce n’était pas sérieux de faire pareille dépense). See Gauguin lettres 1946, pp. 158-159.

14. In 1888 J. Petersen & Sön made a portrait photograph of Mette Gauguin and her children (Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Documentation). Ill. 2265 .

15. De Haan and Isaäcson.

16. Around 22 November Gauguin had sent five of his new paintings to Theo, asking him to confirm their receipt at once. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 288. That Theo did as requested is apparent from Gauguin’s letter (mentioned in n. 12 above).