Original manuscript

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b245 V/1962

In ll. 47-50 Van Gogh says that he will start painting the next Monday. Given that on Sunday, 20 August 1882 he writes that he has then been painting for about two weeks (see letter 258), the Monday he is referring to must be 7 August, and the present letter must date from a few days earlier. Moreover, the letter follows letter 253 of Saturday, 5 August, because Van Gogh returns to the subject of the perspective frame (ll. 2 ff.). So the letter can only have been written later on the same Saturday, 5 or on Sunday, 6 August 1882.