1. Vincent had sent six drawings around 18 June (see letter 782), and on 2 July another eleven (see letter 784).

2. The courtyard of the hospital (F 1467 / JH 1688 ).

3. Giant peacock moth (F 1523 / JH 1700 ).

4. Theo must mean the drawing of periwinkle: F 1614 / JH 2060 . See cat. Amsterdam 2007, p. 191.

5. Theo is referring to the second consignment, which consisted of drawings after paintings Vincent was working on. See letter 784, n. 16.

6. Camille Pissarro and his son Lucien.

7. At the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris, the Norwegian painter Erik Theodor Werenskiold was represented by the works Deux frères (Two brothers), Grande mère (Grandmother), Paysage (Landscape) and Enterrement à la campagne (Burial in the country). He received the ‘Grand Prix’ for the last painting, Peasant burial, 1885 (Oslo, Nasjonalgalleriet). Ill. 1421 . See exhib. cat. Paris 1889-3, cat. nos. 120-123, and Marit Werenskiold, ‘Erik Werenskiold in Munich 1875-1881’, Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 68-2, 1999, pp. 81-95, esp. p. 81.

8. Regarding the artists’ society Les Vingt, see letter 580, n. 6. The seventh exhibition of Les Vingt was held in Brussels from 18 January to 23 February 1890. Works by the 19 members of the society were augmented by the work of 18 other ‘invited artists’: Eugène Boch, Paul Cézanne, Alexandre-Louis-Marie Charpentier, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Louis Hayet, Xavier Mellery, George Minne, Lucien Pissarro, Odilon Redon, Auguste Renoir, Louis Oscar Roty, Giovanni Segantini, Paul Signac, Alfred Sisley, Charles Storm van 's Gravesande, William Thornley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh. See Delevoy 1981, pp. 197 ff.

9. Starry night over the Rhône (F 474 / JH 1592 ).

10. Theo probably means Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562 ) and Sunflowers in a vase (F 456 / JH 1561 ), which Vincent found suitable to exhibit (see, for example, letter 741).

11. The version of the sunflowers that hung above the fireplace at Theo and Jo’s (and later on, in Jo’s house), was probably F 454 / JH 1562 . Jo did not lend this version out to exhibitions until 1901. See Van Tilborgh and Hendriks 2001, pp. 26-27.

12. To rent this little room, Theo paid Tanguy 30 francs on 15 October 1889, 4 February 1890 and 27 April 1890 (Account book 2002, pp. 63, 69).

13. The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595 ) and The red vineyard (F 495 / JH 1626 ).

14. For De Haan and Gauguin’s stay in Brittany, see letter 774, nn. 15 and 16.

15. Isaäcson published art reviews in the Dutch journal De Portefeuille. See letter 807, n. 2.

16. Paul Gauguin, ‘Notes sur l’art à L’Exposition Universelle’, appeared in two parts in Le Moderniste Illustré: on 4 July 1889 (no. 11), pp. 84, 86 and on 13 July 1889 (no. 12), pp. 90-91. In the first part, Gauguin voiced fierce criticism of the organization of the World Exhibition, which allowed only established academic artists to display their work and refused to give independent, innovative artists their own exhibition space. In the second part of his article he discusses the statues and ceramics on display; in a footnote the editor (or Gauguin himself?) expresses his surprise at the fact that Gauguin’s ceramics, which were earlier exhibited at Theo van Gogh’s, were not to be seen at the exhibition.

17. This letter from Salles to Theo is not known.

18. Vincent wrote this in letter 783.

19. For the lithograph by Vernier after Millet’s Angelus , see letter 785, n. 9. Theo paid 36.15 francs for this lithograph on 29 June 1889. See Account book 2002, p. 56.

20. Jo’s parents were Hendrik Christiaan Bonger and Hermine Louise Bonger-Weissman.

21. Vincent said this about the letter he received from their mother, who was nearly 70; Vincent had forwarded this letter to Theo (see letter 784).

a. The word ‘bien’ (here ‘que bien’ is rendered as ‘rather than’) is unusual in this place; it is possible that its use was prompted by the Dutch ‘dan wel’.

22. Andries Bonger was married to Annie van der Linden. Jo and the rest of the Bonger family did not get along very well with her, and even Andries did not seem very happy with her. As early as 12 September 1888, he wrote to Jo in a bitter tone: ‘She is hopelessly apathetic. Sometimes I think she spent years lying on top of a marble tomb. Sadly, we do not seem to cheer each other up’ (See FR b1033; Brief happiness 1999, pp. 21, 23).

23. Andries and Annie lived at 127 rue du Ranelagh in Passy, on the west side of Paris.

24. In letter 787 Vincent had written that he would be receiving money from Salles.