2. It is not known which drawings Van Gogh sent to Gauguin. One of them had been made after the painting Women picking olives (F 655 / JH 1869

), as emerges from letter 841, though such a drawing is not known.

3. In January 1890 Gauguin wrote from Pont-Aven to Schuffenecker, saying that in Paris he hoped to arrange a position as a painter in Tonkin. ‘And if I don’t succeed with Tonkin I’ll try to work at something other than painting, because I have to heave to for a time. Or otherwise, I’ll press the finance minister to give me something or other in France’. (Et si je ne réussi pas pour le Tonkin je vais tâcher de travailler en dehors de la peinture, car il faut tenir la cape pendant quelques temps. Ou bien encore je pousserai le ministre des finances pour me donner en France n’importe quoi). See Gauguin lettres 1946, p. 181. Nothing ever came of his plan.