615

Br. 1990: 617 | CL: 492
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Arles, Monday, 28 May 1888
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1. Pink peach trees (‘Souvenir de Mauve’) (F 394 / JH 1379 [2577]).
[2577]
2. Van Gogh had dedicated the painting The Langlois bridge with washerwomen (F 397 / JH 1368 [2571]) to Tersteeg; see for scraping it off: letter 608, n. 3. As far as we know, Tersteeg never had any of Van Gogh’s paintings in his possession.
[2571]
3. Orchard with peach trees in blossom (F 551 / JH 1396 [2591]) and Orchard bordered by cypresses (F 513 / JH 1389 [2587]). The former is the work with ‘a lot of stippling’.
[2591] [2587]
4. A reference to the story ‘Le Moujik Pakhom. Faut-il beaucoup de terre pour un homme?’ from Tolstoy’s A la recherche du bonheur: see letter 602, n. 10.
5. See for Uncle Vincent: letter 398, n. 6.
6. Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is about 40 km to the south of Arles. See for the date of Van Gogh’s visit to this seaside town: letter 617, Date.
7. Theo wanted his sisters Lies and Willemien to come to Paris. In the end Willemien came alone and stayed with Theo for several weeks in the summer of 1888.
8. One of the drawings Mourier-Petersen took with him was probably The Langlois bridge (F 1470 / JH 1377 [3058]), which Van Gogh incorporated in his letter sketch. It is not possible to identify the other one.
[3058]
9. In his letter sketch of the Leporello album – which was to be made after a Japanese example – Van Gogh included four of his Arles drawings: Farmhouse in a wheatfield (F 1415 / JH 1408 [2598]), which he had probably sent to Theo at the end of April (see letter 602), Landscape with a tree in the foreground (F 1418 / JH 1431 [2612]) and Montmajour (F 1423 / JH 1433 [2614]), which he said in letter 613 that he had sent, and The Langlois bridge (F 1470 / JH 1377 [3058]). Theo did not yet have this drawing: it is dated to mid-May (in other words after the first two consignments in late April-early May) and it was not in the batch referred to in letter 613, since those were views around Montmajour. It seems likely that Mourier-Petersen took it with him. See cat. Amsterdam 2007, p. 114.
In the Van Gogh Museum collection there is a Japanese album of prints that comes from the family estate and was made in the way Van Gogh illustrated in his sketch: Shinsen kachō no kei (Glimpses of newly selected flowers and birds). See cat Amsterdam 1991, p. 25 and cat. no. 112.
[2598] [2612] [2614] [3058]
10. Van Gogh had enclosed this paint order for Tasset in letter 613.
11. Van Gogh must be responding to Theo’s description of a painting by Monet, in connection with his preparations for the exhibition (see letter 625, n. 5). This was Under the pine trees at the end of the day, 1888 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Otto F. Haas). Ill. 1593 [1593]. It emerges from letter 627 to Russell that Vincent knew this work through Theo’s description of it.
[1593]
12. Van Gogh later did the painting The harvest (F 412 / JH 1440 [2621]) of this view near Montmajour. The drawings were The plain of La Crau (F 1419 / JH 1430 [2611]), Landscape with a tree in the foreground (F 1418 / JH 1431 [2612]), The plain of La Crau (F 1448 / JH 1432 [2613]), Landscape with Arles in the background (F 1475 / JH 1435 [2616]) and Heath (F 1493 / JH 1436 [2617]).
[2621] [2611] [2612] [2613] [2616] [2617]
13. See for the proposed exchange with Koning: letter 614, n. 3.
14. The white orchard (F 403 / JH 1378 [2576]).
[2576]
15. See for Rembrandt’s Jan Six [1737]: letter 47, n. 8. Fromentin had also written about Six in Les maîtres d’autrefois: ‘He is going out’ (Il va sortir). See Fromentin 1902, chapter 14, p. 370.
[1737]