The dating of this text cannot be determined with any certainty. The poem was copied from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
We and our neighbours, which had been published in 1875 – on 19 November 1881 Vincent, writing from Etten, advised Theo to read this book (
letter 187). The little drawing of a landscape with gardens and houses,
Fields and houses (F - / JH -) (5.0 x 9.2 cm), which also appears on the sheet, possibly dates from Van Gogh’s period in The Hague, 1882-1883. See
Verzamelde brieven 1952-1954, vol. 1, p. 294; Pabst 1988, p. 95; and cat. Amsterdam 1996, pp. 242-243.
The sheet went by descent to the heirs of Van Gogh’s sister Anna, and was bought at auction by the engineer V.W. van Gogh on 2 May 1973 (Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, no. 66a); on 11 May 1978 it became the property of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation (Van Gogh Museum, Documentation). In any case, Anna wrote a letter to Etten in August 1881 (
see letter 171). If she received this sheet in a letter, it could date, judging by the above, from the last part of 1881.
