1. Koning had sent a postcard from Winschoten on 31 December 1888 (letter 727).

2. In 1880 Mr van Gogh was planning to have his son committed to the Belgian lunatic asylum of Geel. See letter 155, n. 1 and 185, n. 3.

3. For the studies that Koning sent to Theo, see letter 666, n. 9. The proposal to exchange work with Koning came up in letters 600 and 614.

4. Augustine Roulin (‘La berceuse’) (F 508 / JH 1671 ).

5. Van Gogh does not mean that a woman rocking a baby or a lullaby occur in Frederik van Eeden’s De kleine Johannes. This is not the case. He wants to translate the French word ‘berceuse’ into the language of the writer whose book is a point of reference shared by him and Koning: the Dutch of Van Eeden’s De kleine Johannes (on this book, see letter 626, n. 16).

6. Here, too, Van Gogh is not interested in a thematic comparison between his Berceuse and De kleine Johannes; he compares Van Eeden’s ‘style of writing’ with his ‘style of painting’, and is thus referring to a similarity in style and technique. What Van Gogh means is clarified in another passage by his comments on these aspects of La berceuse. In letter 739 he wrote to Gauguin: ‘As an Impressionist arrangement of colours, I have never devised anything better’ (ll. 72-74). The then innovative style of De kleine Johannes does indeed have Impressionistic traits, particularly in the many descriptions of nature, with their countless colour adjectives. Van Gogh’s comparison was actually prompted mainly by his need to win Koning over to his Berceuse, albeit from a distance, by putting the painting on a par with something Koning apparently admired.

7. Regarding Koning’s stay in Paris, see letter 578, n. 8.

8. Félix Rey (F 500 / JH 1659 ).

9. Sunflowers in a vase (F 456 / JH 1561 ) and Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562 ).

10. In letter 595 Van Gogh names the three chrome yellows as orange, yellow and lemon.

11. Theo met Breitner while staying in Amsterdam from 6 to 11 January 1889. Breitner was then working in a studio at Eerste Parkstraat 438. They had already known each other for a long time. See Jessica Voeten, Het Witsenhuis. Amsterdam and Antwerp 2003, p. 29.

12. Van Gogh later pencilled in the sentence ‘als ... brengen’ (If you ... into play’).