1. Besides Fish-drying barn (see n. 2), Van Gogh painted the watercolour Bleaching ground (F 946 / JH 158 ), after which he also did letter sketch C (cf. n. 5 below). The third watercolour, of the pinks on the beach (cf. letter sketch A), is unknown (cf. letter 243, n. 7).

2. Fish-drying barn (F 945 / JH 160 ); ‘the Fish-Drying Barn you know’ is Fish-drying barn (F 940 / JH 154 ): see letter 235.

a. Means: ‘bespaart’ (saves).

3. Het Zieke(n) is a street running parallel to Schenkweg. On the Enthoven metalworks and foundry see De metaalpletterij en ijzergieterij L.I. Enthoven & Co. Sporen van een 19e-eeuws Haags grootindustrieel metaalbedrijf. Ed. P.H. Enthoven et al. The Hague 1996 and exhib. cat. The Hague 1990, pp. 39-44. Lodewijk Cornelis Enthoven in particular acquired a considerable number of works by Van Gogh. Cf. P.H. Enthoven, Kroniek van het geslacht Enthoven. Zutphen 1991; Account book 2002; and FR b3694.

4. That Van Gogh did indeed ‘attack’ this willow is shown by the watercolour Pollard willow (F 947 / JH 164 ) and the letter sketch in letter 252.

5. Bleaching ground (F 946 / JH 158 ). Cf. n. 1 above. The ‘public’ bleaching ground in Kerklaan in Scheveningen is depicted, with the Heilige Antonius Abtkerk in the background. See exhib. cat. The Hague 1990, p. 68.

6. Rooftops (F 943 / JH 156 ), which corresponds with letter sketch B.

7. Goupil’s premises, where H.G. Tersteeg worked, were on Plaats.

b. Means: ‘liggen’ (lie).

8. An allusion to Robinson Crusoe in Daniel Defoe’s The life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, mariner (1719). He lives on an uninhabited island and goes about in extremely simple clothing.

9. The underlining may be by another hand.

10. Van Gogh often used the term ‘woodcuts’ to refer to wood engravings.

11. Samuel Luke Fildes, The empty chair (‘Gad’s Hill, Ninth of June 1870’), The Graphic, Christmas Number, 1870, after p. 24. Ill. 1934 .

12. For the booksellers Jozef and David Blok of The Hague, see letter 199.

13. This concerns three of the following five prints by Charles Meryon: La brébis et les deux agneaux (The sheep and the two lambs), 1849-1850 (after Adriaen van de Velde); Pêcheurs de la mer du sud (Fishers of the Zuiderzee), 1849-1850 (after R. Zeeman) – on a single page in L’Artiste of 15 December 1861; Le petit pont (The little bridge), 1849-1850 (L’Artiste, 5 December 1858); La tour de l’horloge (The clock tower), 1852 (L’Artiste, 31 October 1858) and La pompe Notre-Dame (Pumping-station Notre-Dame), 1852 (L’Artiste, 28 November 1858). The last three sheets were printed in an edition of 600 for L’Artiste; Beaux-Arts et Belles-lettres. Ill. 1936 , Ill. 1937 , and Ill. 1938 . See Richard S. Schneiderman (with the assistance of Frank W. Raysor, ii), The catalogue raisonné of the prints of Charles Meryon. London 1990, pp. 26, 32, 38, 41, 53; cat. nos. 8, 18, 20, 23, 26.

14. Les Halles, the market halls in the centre of Paris, are omnipresent in the novel Le ventre de Paris. Zola describes the gigantic constructions in iron and glass whose dazzling colours are overwhelming: ‘Now he could hear the long rumble coming from Les Halles. Paris was chewing mouthfuls for her two million inhabitants. It was like a great central organ beating furiously, sending the life-blood into every vein. Noise of colossal jaws.’ (Maintenant il entendait le long roulement qui partait des Halles. Paris mâchait les bouchées à ses deux millions d’habitants. C’était comme un grand organe central battant furieusement, jetant le sang de la vie dans toutes les veines. Bruit de mâchoires colossales). See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 1, p. 631.

15. In the following letter Van Gogh goes into these ideas about colour in more detail. He borrowed them from Cassagne: see letter 252, n. 2.

16. A ‘demi-saison’ is a coat or overcoat that is worn in the transitional seasons, that is, spring and autumn.

17. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.