a. Means: ‘van de ene plaats naar de andere gedragen’ (carried from one place to another).

1. Mr van Gogh told Theo with satisfaction: ‘Vincent also remains tireless and he moreover spends the day painting and drawing with exemplary ambition’, and nine days later ‘Vincent remains exemplary in nursing and is also working with the greatest ambition on drawing and painting. I do so hope that his work might find some approbation. For he works so much it is exemplary’ (FR b2251, 1 February 1884; FR b2252, 10 February 1884).

2. Van Gogh had sent Theo two batches containing a total of nine paintings from Drenthe; see letters 389 and 406.

3. Van Gogh had told Furnée’s son that he would pay by the twentieth of January: see letter 421 and cf. letter 422.

4. A modified bed was created for Mrs van Gogh; Mr van Gogh explained it as follows: ‘the Doctor got us to make a sort of stretcher, by laying straps under her, at short distances apart, at both ends of which was a large loop, through which strong hands were thrust. In this way, while the Doctor was there, we were able to lift her without difficulty and lay other bedclothes on the couch. That brought her great relief and it can be repeated again later in the same way if necessary’ (FR b2251, 1 February 1884).

5. Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (F 25 / JH 521 ). Mrs van Gogh had this work in her possession until she died. In contrast to the letter sketch The Reformed Church in Nuenen (F - / JH 447) – which shows a labourer and in this respect corresponds with the pen-and-ink drawing The Reformed Church in Nuenen (F 1117 / JH 446) – there are churchgoers in the painting, but we know that Van Gogh added this group in the autumn of 1885. See cat. Amsterdam 1999, pp. 58-65, cat. no. 6.

6. Most probably Weaver (F 26 / JH 450 ), of which there is also a finished pen-and-ink drawing (F 1122 / JH 454). As a rule, when Van Gogh used the term ‘study’ he meant a painting.

7. There is a watercolour, Weaver, with a baby in a highchair (F 1119 / JH 449), and a drawing, Weaver, with a baby in a highchair (F 1118 / JH 452), of this composition; there is no known painting of it.

8. The memorial exhibition marking Manet’s death in 1883 was staged in the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in January 1884. There were 179 works at this exhibition. It was followed on 4 and 5 February by a sale of Manet’s works (Lugt 1938-1987, no. 43575). See Exposition des oeuvres de Edouard Manet. Exhib. cat. Paris 1884.

9. In the compilation edition of Zola’s Mes haines, which Van Gogh knew and refers to a little later, there were two pieces about Manet (see letter 358, n. 19). The most important and most comprehensive was Ed. Manet, étude biographique et critique; the other, shorter piece was an essay in Mon Salon. Van Gogh is referring to the former (see n. 10).

10. The ‘very few paintings’ by Manet that Van Gogh could have seen included Repose: portrait of Berthe Morisot, 1870 (Providence, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design) and Le bon bock, 1873 (Philadelphia Museum of Art). They had hung at the Salon of 1873, which Van Gogh had visited (see letter 9). It is possible that he also saw Manet’s Argentueil, 1874 (Tournai, Musée des Beaux-Arts) at the Salon of 1875. The London branch of Durand-Ruel exhibited two paintings by Manet during Van Gogh’s time in London (1873-1874), possibly The balcony, 1868-1869 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay) and Young man in the costume of a Majo, 1863 (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art). He may have seen them there. See exhib. cat. Manet. Françoise Cachin et al. Paris (Grand Palais) and New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1983. New York 1983, pp. 513-514, 537.

11. In Ed. Manet, étude biographique et critique, Zola proclaimed Manet as a painter of the future: ‘I consider it an honour to have been the first to hail the arrival of a new master.’ (Je tiens à honneur d’avoir été le premier à saluer la venue d’un nouveau maître.) The ‘conclusions’ referred to by Van Gogh are taken from chapter 2: ‘There will probably be in it too original, too human a manifestation for the truth not to be ultimately victorious... The future belongs to him; I do not even dare to imprison him in the present.’ (Il y aura là une manifestation trop originale, trop humaine, pour que la vérité ne soit pas enfin victorieuse... L’avenir est à lui; je n’ose même l’enfermer dans le présent.) See Zola 1966-1970, vol. 12, pp. 821, 840.