1. In L’amour Jules Michelet speaks of ‘women of marble’ (filles de marbre) as ‘women of sadness’ (filles de tristesse). See Michelet, L’amour, p. 438.

2. Quinine is a febrifuge, i.e. a substance used to dispel or reduce fever.

3. Matt. 10:16.

4. The motif of this unknown drawing could correspond to the lithograph Workman sitting on a basket, cutting bread (F 1663 / JH 272 ), which Van Gogh would make a year later.

5. Baron Frédéric de Nucingen appears in several of the novels in the cycle La comédie humaine by Balzac. He is an English banker of Jewish descent and therefore speaks with a heavy accent. In Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, he says: ‘Le tiaple n’egssisde boinde’ (le diable n’existe point – the devil doesn’t exist). See Balzac, La comédie humaine vi. Etudes de moeurs. Scènes de la vie parisienne. Ed. Pierre Citron. Paris 1977, p. 494. Van Gogh made a note of this short sentence in his Antwerp sketchbook, but it is difficult to determine exactly when he wrote it down. See Van der Wolk 1987, p. 122.

6. Possibly a quotation; see also letter 183.

7. In the chapter ‘Il n’y a point de vieille femme’, Michelet writes: ‘For the rest, a lady is a lady’ (Du reste, une dame est une dame). (Michelet, L’amour, p. 385).

8. Evidently Van Rappard had finished in 11th (and last) place at a competition, probably having submitted one of his works that was shown at the ‘Levende Meesters’ (Living Masters) exhibition at Arti; the archives of Arti give no further information (cf. letter 176, n. 10). The number eleven has to do with ‘Carnaval’, or Shrovetide, the pre-lenten festivities beginning as early as St Martin’s Day (11-11).

9. Van Gogh used bête noir again in letters 188, 190 and 474.