1. Theo had written to Peyron on 23 May, as emerges from his answer of 26 May 1889 (FR b1058). Peyron informed Theo that Vincent was better and that he spent whole days drawing in the garden. He also said that he still thought that Vincent’s illness was connected with epilepsy.

2. This newcomer was a 27-year-old man, ‘suffering from acute mania’, who had been admitted to the asylum on 27 May. ‘He displays frenzied agitation, he screams and breaks everything’ (quoted from the admissions register, in Doiteau and Leroy 1928, p. 62). That this patient lay in the bath all day long was apparently part of the hydrotherapy treatment. On this subject, see letter 776, n. 23.

3. Van Gogh is referring to the technique of peinture à l’essence – much used by Degas, Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec – in which the oil paints are highly diluted with spirits (‘essence de térébenthine’, terpentine) to obtain a matt and transparent effect.

4. This morning star was the planet Venus, which ‘had emerged from obscurity in the morning twilight during mid-May and became more prominent and higher in the morning sky through June’. See Charles A. Whitney, ‘The skies of Vincent van Gogh’, Art History, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1996), pp. 356-357.

5. For the technique of washing paintings with water, see letter 662, n. 8.

6. The night café (F 463 / JH 1575 ).

7. The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595 ).

8. This work, described further on in the letter as ‘the landscape with yellow greenery’, was presumably The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 468 / JH 1578 ), which had been painted ‘with thick impasto, lemon yellow and lemon green’ (letter 683) and had a walnut frame (see letter 699). According to Pickvance, this work is ‘now lost’. See exhib. cat. New York 1986, p. 31. Dorn identifies it as Entrance to the public garden (F 566 / JH 1585 ). See Dorn 1990, p. 436. Regarding the frame, see letter 673, n. 16.

9. This is Starry night over the Rhône (F 474 / JH 1592 ); later in the letter Van Gogh actually calls it ‘the starry night’.

10. In Maupassant’s novel Fort comme la mort (1889), a painter receives a commission to paint the portrait of a noblewoman. The businesslike relations between the painter and his model grow into a mutual passion, despite the woman’s resolution never to surrender to his charms. Her beauty is fading and he takes an increasing interest in her daughter, who resembles her. When the daughter marries, the infatuated painter runs down the street in a frenzy and dies in a traffic accident. The novel first appeared in the Revue Illustré in instalments between 1 February and 15 May 1889, and was published in book form by Ollendorff in May 1889 (see Maupassant 1987, p. 1573).

11. For Zola’s Le rêve, see letter 716, n. 1. Van Gogh refers to several descriptive passages in the novel. The golden embroidery occurs on pp. 894-895, 899 (chapter 6); pp. 912-913 (chapter 8) and p. 950 (chapter 11). The male figure, Félicien, endeavours unsuccessfully to convince his father of his love for Angélique, whom he tries in vain to persuade to elope with him. Félicien is described only through the eyes of Angélique, who craves wealth and status. The massive, dark cathedral is mentioned on pp. 862-863 (chapter 4). The ‘lilac and dark blue repoussoir’ is derived from pp. 931-932 (chapter 9). See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 4.

12. After this, Van Gogh crossed out ‘et ou prédomine la couleur’ (and where colour predominates).

13. Van Gogh had ordered canvas and paints in letter 776.

14. In letter 776 Van Gogh said that he had painted four canvases of the garden. These were Irises (F 608 / JH 1691 ), Lilacs (F 579 / JH 1692 ), Trees with ivy in the garden of the asylum (F 609 / JH 1693 ) and The garden of the asylum (F 734 / JH 1698 ).