1. Gauguin had told Theo on 7 or 8 October that he would give Bernard’s mother, who was going from Pont-Aven to Paris, several canvases to take with her. Bernard was to bring the rest of the paintings, among them The vision after the sermon (see letter 688); he left for Paris about 10 November. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, pp. 247, 266, 275. We know from a letter Theo wrote to his sister Willemien (6 December 1888) that he had received twenty paintings from Gauguin altogether; they included winter and spring landscapes and views of the village. ‘Do you remember that painting of the negresses by Gauguin that hangs above the sofa? He recently sent me at the gallery twenty paintings that he did in Brittany last year. If you can call the painting to mind, you know what strange poetry it has in it. Well there’s the same in these new paintings, but since the subjects are more within our reach they’re easier to understand and are, if not more beautiful, at any rate more enjoyable from the first moment. There are winter landscapes with the greyish green hills against the leaden sky where the colour is altogether muted and one thinks of nothing but the bleakness of the sloping fields. Or the same landscape, but with a single beech tree with shrivelled russet foliage as a counterpoint to the green. There are also spring landscapes with the slender branches of the trees on which all the young leaves hang like little bells and tell of the rejoicing of rejuvenated nature. Or a little village in the first days of spring veiled in a purple mist behind the deeper coloured tree trunks whose bright green leaves are echoed in the green fields that one sees behind the village, stretching away to the hill in the distance. You’d have to see them to get an idea of the diverse way he’s expressed himself and above all to feel the different moods in which he did them. Usually the calm nature that fills his innermost being with resignation, but sometimes also the violent welling up of all his suffering and strife, which he expresses through the most powerful, deepest tones that resound above all when he saw nature swelling under the beneficent and creative power of the sun. It’s impossible to describe everything that’s in these paintings, but it appears that he’s greater than anyone had thought. It could just be with him the way it used to be with Millet, who is now understood by everyone because the poetry he proclaims is so powerful that everyone from great to small finds satisfaction in it. Monet also makes magnificent pictures of nature, but one has to be happy and healthy oneself to be able to enjoy them, otherwise one is likely to find oneself thinking “Oh if only I were there, I would be happier”. Whereas from Gauguin come as it were whispered words of comfort to those who are not happy or not healthy. In him nature itself speaks, whereas in Monet one hears the maker of the paintings speaking’ (FR b916).

2. Out of this batch Quay with sand barges (F 449 / JH 1558 ) was meant for Bernard, in exchange for his Self-portrait with portrait of Gauguin (see letter 692). It emerges from letter 716 that Bernard took two more studies from Van Gogh’s consignment. He had the choice of a ‘ Red sunset’, Garden with flowers (F 578 / JH 1538 ) and an unidentified work (see letter 698, n. 1). In exchange he sent a seascape (see letter 719).

3. This ‘young chap’ was Ernest Ponthier de Chamaillard. Cf. letter 694, n. 2.

4. Self-portrait (F 476 / JH 1581 ).

5. This Van Gogh self-portrait was most probably Self-portrait with a straw hat (F 526 / JH 1309 ). Cf. letter 698, n. 8. See letter 655, n. 3, for Bernard, Bernard’s grandmother .

6. In terms of the batch of paintings sent to Bernard and Gauguin, by ‘what I had done in figure painting’ Van Gogh can only mean Self-portrait (F 476 / JH 1581 ). He could, however, also be alluding here to his figure paintings from Arles; Bernard had been sent the drawing Zouave (F 1482 / JH 1487 ) in July, and had probably meanwhile also received Mousmé (F 1504 / JH 1520) and possibly Joseph Roulin (F 1723 / JH 1523). See letter 641, n. 1. Gauguin presumably already had the drawing Mousmé (F 1722 / JH 1521); according to Merlhès this is a letter sketch in a lost letter to Gauguin written in late July or early August. See Correspondance Gauguin 1984, p. 491 (n. 266).

7. The trees along boulevard des Lices in Arles (also known as ‘la Lice’).

8. The five new canvases were Entrance to the public garden (F 566 / JH 1585 ), The Tarascon stagecoach (F 478a / JH 1605 ), The public garden with a couple strolling (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 479 / JH 1601 ), The viaduct (F 480 /JH 1603 ) and The Trinquetaille bridge (F 481 / JH 1604 ). See letter 703.

9. Van Gogh had listed these fifteen paintings in his last letter (letter 703). Besides the five new canvases (n. 8) they were Sunflowers in a vase (F 456 / JH 1561 ), Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562 ), The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 468 / JH 1578 ), a now lost painting of the park (cf. the drawing The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 1465 / JH 1583) and the letter sketch in letter 693 for the composition), Path in the public garden (F 470 / JH 1582 ), The night café (F 463 / JH 1575 ), The Yellow House (‘The street’) (F 464 / JH 1589 ), Starry night over the Rhône (F 474 / JH 1592 ), Ploughed fields (‘The furrows’) (F 574 / JH 1586 ) and The green vineyard (F 475 / JH 1595 ).

10. See letter 589, n. 19, for Vincent and Theo’s visit to Seurat’s studio.

11. Van Gogh did not have a specific Seurat self-portrait in mind here, but is envisaging something along the lines of the exchange of self-portraits with Gauguin and Bernard. Nothing came of it.

12. See letter 692, n. 1, for Gauguin’s Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, ‘Les misérables’ .

13. The article Van Gogh sent was probably Paul Mariéton, ‘En Provence. Sensations d’un félibre’, from L’Homme de Bronze of 14 October 1888. The second part appeared in the same paper a week later. Mariéton describes his impressions of a trip through Provence, starting in Avignon; he visited Frédéric Mistral and travelled with him to Salon-de-Provence. There they visited Antoine Crousillat, nicknamed ‘the nestor of the Félibres’ (le doyen des Félibres). Arles, Montmajour and Fontvieille are among the places mentioned in the section Van Gogh is referring to. An extended version of the piece was subsequently published in P. Mariéton, La terre provençale. Paris 1890, pp. 2-57. Cf. Dorn 1990, pp. 279 (n. 276), 554.

14. The Félibrige was set up in 1854 by seven young Provençal poets who called themselves the Félibres (‘they who know’). They were Théodore Aubanel, Jean Brunet, Anselme Mathieu, Frédéric Mistral, Joseph Roumanille, Alphonse Tavan and Paul Giera. The members of this movement devoted themselves to the maintenance and purification of the ‘langue d’oc’, the Provençal language, and the restoration of its status as a literary language. Clovis Hugues was not one of the founders of the Félibrige, but he was regarded as a member of the group.