1. The collection of the Van Gogh Museum contains a copper vase and an earthenware vase from Theo’s apartment; they were depicted by Vincent in various Paris still lifes (including Vase with Chinese asters and gladioli (F 234 / JH 1168) and Fritillaries in a vase (F 213 / JH 1247)).

2. Theo and Jo’s apartment was at 8 cité Pigalle in Montmartre. See letter 745, n. 16.

3. This was probably Small pear tree in blossom (F 405 / JH 1394

), which Theo had proposed in November 1888 to exhibit at Boussod, Valadon & Cie. See letter 721, n. 3.

4. It emerges from letter 887 that The harvest (F 412 / JH 1440

) hung above the piano. The piano was Aunt Cornelie’s wedding present to Theo and Jo (FR b923 and b940).

5. At Theo’s apartment in Paris, works by Vincent must have been shifted around continually. Jo wrote about this on 25 May 1889 to her sister Mien: ‘there are always two or three unframed paintings standing around our place, being tried out here and there’ (FR b4288). For example, after receiving a new consignment of paintings (letter 767), Theo decided to hang La berceuse in the guestroom (FR b2848). In her introduction to the letters, Jo wrote: ‘the blossoming orchards hung in the bedroom, the Potato Eaters in the dining room above the fireplace, the large landscape from Arles and the nocturnal view of the Rhône ... in the sitting room’. See De brieven 1990, vol. 1, p. 36.

6. The World Exhibition, held in Paris from 5 May to 5 November 1889.

7. Camille Pissarro’s son Lucien.

8. The Dutch artist Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig was 23 at the time. From October 1888 until July 1889 he was in Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian and in Fernand Cormon’s studio. In a letter to the art critic Albert Plasschaert of 8 January 1904, he wrote: ‘Spent a lot of time in Paris with Theo van Gogh; Vincent was in the South. Saw at Theo’s works by Claude Monet, Pissarro, de Gas etc.’ See J.M. Joosten, ‘Van Gogh publikaties. De eerste kennismaking met het werk van Vincent van Gogh in Nederland’, Museumjournaal 14-3 (June 1969), p. 156.