Updates (version June 2012)
Letters
A recently discovered letter was added (letter 1a).
Letter 12, n. 7 changed to:
Dulwich Picture Gallery, Britain’s oldest public gallery with a famous collection of seventeenth-century paintings. On Monday, 4 August, Van Gogh wrote his signature ‘VWvanGogh the Hague’ in the visitor’s book (Documentation Dulwich Picture Gallery). Ill. 3104.
Letter 43, Location:
Auction Sotheby’s New York, 13 December 2011, lot 174.
Letter 156, n. b changed to:
Sclôneurs and sclôneuses were usually children who worked deep underground in the passages immediately behind a miner and dragged the coal away in baskets. Those baskets were known as sclônes in the local patois. With thanks to Freddy Godart. The term ‘sclôneuse’ (a woman who worked in the pits) is also found in Zola’s Germinal.
Letter 159, n. 1 changed to:
Van Gogh had meanwhile installed himself in Brussels in a small lodging-house at 72 boulevard du Midi (Zuidlaan). He was not registered at this address, however. For a photo of this location (from the Archives de la Ville de Bruxelles), see Tralbaut 1969, p. 74.
Letter 160, n. 3 changed to:
From the first week of November 1880 Van Gogh was enrolled as a student at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Royal Academy of Fine Arts) at Brussels for the course ‘Dessin d’après l’antique: torse et fragments’ (Drawing from antiquity: torso and fragments), under registration number 8488. See exhib. cat. Brussels 1987, pp. 239-242; and De Bodt 1995, p. 278. Van Gogh’s failure to write anything at all about his experiences at the Academy led Hulsker to doubt whether he actually attended any classes (Hulsker 1990-1, p. 91). He must have done, though, for he took part in a concours on 5 December 1880. See Bart Moens, De kunstenaarsopleiding van Vincent van Gogh in Brussel. Unpublished bachelor's thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel 2012, pp. 36-47. It emerges from letter 161 and others that Van Gogh left the academy shortly afterwards, probably because he finished last in the concours.
Letter 178, n. 1 changed to:
Van Rappard lived at rue Lombard 17, around the corner from Zuidstraat, where the Academie voor Schone Kunsten was housed. The enrolment register shows that Van Rappard attended the 1880-81 and 1881-82 courses. That makes it very unlikely that he attended the Academie in Sint Joost, as was previously thought; see exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1974, p. 12.
Letter 217, translation:
‘etching with no burr’ changed to ‘undeburred etching’
Letter 217, n. 2:
‘etching with no burr’ changed to ‘undeburred etching’
Letter 259, translation:
‘the cuisine of art’ changed to ‘the cookery of art’
Letter 317, translation:
‘numbers’ changed to ‘nos.’
Letter 357, n. 4 changed to:
The painting is most probably L’attente – Le samedi à Villerville, Calvados (Waiting – Saturday at Villerville, Calvados) (present whereabouts unknown). A photograph of the work was published in L’Illustration 43 (21 March 1885), pp. 189-190. Ill. 664. The etching by Butin is ill. 3105.
Letter 534, n. 8 changed to:
Frans Hals, The merry drinker, c. 1628-1630. Ill. 150. Van Gogh borrowed the term ‘citron amorti’ (dull lemon) from De Goncourt’s Chérie, where an artist talks of ‘la nuance citron amorti’, which was a fashionable colour in the eighteenth century (ed. 1884, p. 182). Van Gogh had just read this book (see n. 18).
Letter 551, original text:
‘Delacrocheachtigheid’ changed to ‘Delarocheachtigheid’
Letter 555, n. 2 changed to:
This work with nude torsos was overpainted by Van Gogh in Paris with Still life with meadow flowers and roses, 1886 (F 278 / JH 1103). Ill. 3103. See Luuk Struick van der Loeff et al., ‘Rehabilitation of a flower still life in the Kröller-Müller Museum and a lost Antwerp painting by Van Gogh’, in Van Gogh: New Findings. Van Gogh Studies 4. Zwolle and Amsterdam 2012, pp. 33-54.
Letter 569, original text and translation:
‘though not being one of the club yet I have much admired’ changed to ‘though not being one of the club, yet I have much admired’
Letter 573, translation:
‘humble’ changed to ‘obedient’
Letter 663, n. 1:
‘Van Gogh undoubtedly saw the work at the Millet exhibition in Paris in 1887’ changed to ‘Van Gogh saw the work at the Millet exhibition in Paris in 1887’.
Letter 698, n. 8:
‘Unpublished letter from Bernard to his father, 28 January 1900, Getty Center’ changed to ‘Letter from Bernard to his father, 28 January 1900 (Bernard lettres 2012, no. 249).’
Letter 753, n. 1 changed to:
Van Gogh must be referring to the café proprietor Joseph Ginoux and his wife, Marie, who were friends of his. Ginoux had not signed the petition, but the statement he made to the police confirmed the neighbours’ complaints about Van Gogh’s indecent behaviour. See letter 750, nn. 2 and 3, Documentation, shortly before 27 February 1889, and Ill. 2278-2280.
Letter 776, n.4 changed to:
the Berceuse he had left with Tanguy had been sold for 600 francs. See Bernard lettres 2012, no. 147, p. 338.
Letter 822, n. 4 changed to:
This refers to the painted sketch for Millet’s painting Birth of the calf, c. 1864, which Van Gogh must have seen at the retrospective exhibition of Millet’s work in Paris in 1887. This first, unfinished version (ill. 1170) was well-known through the engraving that Maxime François Antoine Lalanne made after it for the catalogue of the Alfred Saucède sale in 1879 (Lugt 1938-1987, no. 38966).
Letter 879, n. 15 changed to:
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Inter Artes et Naturam (Between art and nature), 1890 (Musée de Rouen). A smaller version is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (Ill. 316). Van Gogh had seen the painting at the exhibition of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. See exhib. cat. Paris 1890-4, p. xxii, no. 718, and RM21. Van Gogh made the letter sketch (F - / JH -) from memory.
RM03, Date:
‘(before 1875)’ changed to ‘(end 1874 - early 1875)’
Chronology
1886, 1 May-30 June:
‘Probably visits the Salon’ changed to ‘Visits the Salon, and lists the names of 18 painters who exhibited there in his sketchbook of the period (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum).’
1886, 15 May-15 June:
‘Probably visits the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition’ changed to ‘Visits the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition (569)’
1887, May-June:
Probably also visits the Millet retrospective at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts’ changed to: ‘Visits the Millet retrospective at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts (822)’
Bibliography
Bernard lettres 2012
Emile Bernard. Les lettres d'un artiste (1884-1941). Ed. Neil McWilliam. Paris 2012.
Jansen et al. 2012
Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker, ‘Waiting to be discovered. An unknown letter from 1872 by Vincent van Gogh’, Van Gogh: New findings. Van Gogh Studies 4. Zwolle and Amsterdam 2012, pp. 10-18.
Images
Letter 12, n. 7:
Image of Van Gogh’s signature (ill. 3104).
Letter 43:
New images of the letter (recto and verso).
Letter 357, n. 4
New image of Butin’s etching (ill. 3105).
Letter 555, n. 2:
Image of X-ray (ill. 3103).
Letter 768:
New image of sheet 2 recto.
Updates (version December 2011)
Functionalities
The site’s search facility has been extended to cover the editorial essays, the chronology, the letters overview and the documentation. Cross-references to individuals, works of art, books and Bible references now also include references to the editorial texts.
Many minor changes have been made to the maps and plans.
It is now possible to search for sketches included with the letters (for example, search for Old man with an umbrella seen from the back, F - / JH 214).
All extant envelopes are accessible under the facsimile tab (see letter 10, for example).
The address side of all postcards is now accessible under the facsimile tab (see letter 223, for example).
The zoom level is displayed when zooming in on a facsimile.
When a note is opened in the middle (metadata) column, the ‘Show metadata’ command at the top of the column will close the note and restore the letter’s metadata. The same can be done by clicking the hyperlink on the note number.
In the Advanced search panel, the prompt for works of art, individuals and literature now ignores accents (é, ë, ô, etc.)
Superfluous ‘see’ references have been removed from the persons index, as they made searching more complicated. For example, the entry ‘Beecher Stowe, see Stowe’ is no longer there. You can still find ‘Beecher’ using your browser’s search facility (usually Ctrl-F in Windows, Cmd-F on a Mac).
Rather than showing each first-time visitor the Quick guide, there is now a modest pop-up window suggesting that the Quick guide might offer useful help.
The number of letters in sections 1 and 2 of the Overview of all the letters is now hyperlinked to a list of the corresponding letters.
Letters
Letter 55, translation:
‘wake me op’ changed to ‘wake me up’
Letter 85, n. 4 changed to:
A missionary working in London. The London Missionary Society, which was founded in 1795, sent missionaries abroad to the British Empire.
Letter 93, n. 13 changed to:
Elbert Jan van Wisselingh had received his training at Goupil’s in The Hague (1864-1866) and in Paris (1866-1874). He and the art dealer Daniel Cottier were business partners in London in the years 1874-1882. Their gallery was at 8 Pall Mall. See Heijbroek and Wouthuysen 1999. The Guardian of 24 August 2011 reported that art historian Max Donnelly ‘has established that the windows are located in St Andrews church in Owslebury, near Winchester. Standing just over a metre high (4ft), the windows were commissioned by William Carnegie, 8th Earl of Northesk, as a memorial to his wife and daughter, who both died before him. Both women are depicted as the Virgin Mary. […] Donnelly contacted the earl’s descendants and was pointed in the direction of the family scrapbook. “Inside I found photographs of the people involved and photographs of the designs that Van Gogh had described,” said Donnelly. “I assume that the 8th earl sent copies to family members showing them what he was intending for the church to the memory of his wife and daughter”.’ Ills. 3099-3202.
Letter 122, n. 6 changed to:
Booksellers’ Row was the unofficial name of the area around Paternoster Row and Honeywell Street in London (near the Strand), ...
Letter 136, n. 22:
The example of Anne of Brittany, after the sculpture by Jean Juste de Tours ...
Letter 175, translation:
‘‘intangible’, though’ changed to ‘‘intangible’ though’
Letter 179, n. 4, added:
See also letter 193, n. 25.
Letter 193, n. 25 changed to:
Taken from the poem ‘Onvermoeid’ (Tireless) by P.A. de Génestet: see letter 179, n. 4. The last part of the utterance is quoted again in letter 458, where the word ‘énergique’ has been added.
Letter 214:
Notes 4 and 5 have been reversed.
Letter 333, n. 32 changed to:
Although Van Gogh wrote ‘Henri Pille’, this is a reference to Howard Pyle’s Christmas morning in Old New York, which is also mentioned in letter 346; see letter 279, n. 8.
Letter 357, n. 4 changed to:
The painting is most probably L’attente – Le samedi à Villerville, Calvados (Waiting – Saturday at Villerville, Calvados) (present whereabouts unknown). A photograph of the work was published in L’Illustration 43 (21 March 1885), pp. 189-190. The etching by Butin is ill. 664.
Letter 357, n. 6 changed to:
Bernardus Blommers, Novembre (November) (private collection) was shown at the Salon of 1883.
Letter 449, translation:
‘can express’ changed to ‘it can express’.
Letter 453, n. 5:
‘in a building next to the South Kensington Museum in West London’ changed to ‘in the South Kensington Museum in West London’.
Letter 496, translation
‘food in reality for one’s imagination’ changed to ‘food for one’s imagination from reality’.
Letter 507, translation, changed to:
But it’s — an enchanted land — where one isn’t free.
Letter 519, translation:
‘paint dark’ changed to ‘paint darkly’.
Letter 528, translation:
‘life and raison d'être’ changed to ‘life of its own and raison d'être’.
Letter 545, translation:
‘at least so one can see them’ changed to ‘at least, one can see them like that’.
Letter 569, translation:
‘so useful’ changed to ‘as useful’.
Letter 569, n. 2-3, and letter 669 n. 5-6:
‘VIIIe exposition de peinture impressionniste’ changed to ‘VIIIe exposition de peinture’.
Letter 653, note added:
12. Bouches-du-Rhône.
Letter 736:
Notes 17, 18 and 19 have been reversed.
Letter 826, n. 1:
‘Cf. Hulsker 1993-2’ changed to ‘Cf. Benno Stokvis, Lijden zonder klagen: het tragische levenslot van Hubertina van Gogh. Baarn 1969.’
Images
Letter 507:
Image of X-ray corrected by reversal.
Letter 643:
Image of F 1471 / JH 1420 corrected by reversal.
People mentioned in the correspondence
‘Petrus Anthonius (Antoon) Hermans’ changed to ‘Anthonius (Antoon) Petrus Hermans’
‘Johannes van der Harten’ changed to ‘Joseph van der Harten’
Willem van de Wakker (1859-1927) …, who lived in Eindhoven
‘Anton Rudolf Mauve’ changed to ‘Anton Mauve’
Credit lines
Ulysse Butin, Waiting - Saturday at Villerville: credit line changed to ‘Collection P. & G. Groff, USA’
Chronology
1873
‘La Jeunesse de Cromwell’ changed to ‘Cromwell’
Updates (version December 2010)
Click here for notes about previous updates.
Letters
Letter 569, changed to:
yellow and violet, seeking LES TONS ROMPUS ET NEUTRES to harmonise ...
Letter 234
‘geraapleegd’ changed to ‘geraadpleegd’
Notes
Letter 40, n. 12 changed to:
Jean Louis Hamon, Si j’étais l’hiver sombre (If I were sombre winter), engraved by Leon Mariani. Ill. 1687. The original work is part of the decorative painting The four seasons, 1850, by Henry Picou, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Gustave Rodolphe Boulanger and Jean Louis Hamon (The Cleveland Museum of Art).
Letter 41, n. 9, changed to:
Mrs van Gogh’s birthday was 10 September. The birthday present had still not arrived at Helvoirt on 12 September. The Reverend Van Gogh told Theo that he had asked about it at the post office (FR b3572).
Letter 199, n. 12, changed to:
Van Gogh is very probably referring to one of the prints relating to Hubert von Herkomer’s painting … A print titled Sunday at Chelsea hospital, after a drawing which Herkomer later used for the painting, was published in The Graphic 3 …There is an impression in Van Gogh’s estate.
Letter 437, n. 14, changed to:
Johanna Hendrika Amilda van Renesse, an unmarried woman of independent means, lived in De Berg no. 505 (district F, now Beekstraat) in Nuenen (FR b2255 and b2254; and RHC).
Letter 510:
Notes 12 and 13 have been reversed.
Letter 560, n. 8, added at the end of the note:
Theo knew what Vincent was talking about. He and Andries Bonger [+ tag] had seen a performance of Socrate et sa femme at the Théâtre Français on 25 December 1885 (FR b1832).
Letter 569, n. 8, changed to:
For a suggested identification, see Van Tilborgh 2007, p. 70, n. 31, and Louis van Tilborgh and Ella Hendriks, ‘Dirk Hannema and the rediscovery of a painting by Vincent van Gogh’, The Burlington Magazine, June 2010, p. 403, n. 87.
Letter 795, n. 1, changed to:
Before his departure Cor spent ‘nearly a week’ with Theo and Jo in Paris, arriving there on 16 August 1889. Aunt Cornelie had given him 500 guilders to travel to Southampton via Paris (FR b4292). Cor had written a letter to Vincent from Breda (FR b2408).
Letter 853, n. 6:
‘Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera (Departure for Cythera)’ changed to: ‘Embarkation for Cythera’.
Images
Letter 602
Image of F 1476 / JH 1409 corrected through reversal.
Letter 851
New images of the letter (recto and verso).
Letter 853
New images of the letter (recto and verso).
People mentioned in the correspondence
‘Gustave Albert Aurier’ changed to ‘Gabriel-Albert Aurier’
Credit lines
Letters 325, 618, 851, 853 and 740:
‘Private Collection’ changed to ‘Private Collection / Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, Paris’.
Vincent van Gogh, Green wheatfield (F 718 / JH 1727): ‘Zurich, Kunsthaus’ changed to ‘Private collection’.
Updates (version June 2010)
Notes
Letter 12, n. 5, changed to:
Here Van Gogh names popular tourist attractions: Crystal Palace, the principal structure of the 1851 Great Exhibition, re-erected in Sydenham; the medieval Tower of London; and Madame Tussaud’s waxworks museum in Baker Street.
Letters 199, n. 9; 235, n. 13; 314, n. 9; and 359, n. 38:
‘Patrick Michael Fitzgerald (fl. 1871-1891)’ changed to: ‘Michael FitzGerald (1848-1922)’.
Letter 260, n. 9:
‘letters 202, 215 and 245’ changed to: ‘letters 202, 216 and 245’.
Letter 363, n. 2, changed to:
Van Gogh thinks that the drawings listed here, which he had mentioned before, could also be photographed. The first drawing would have had the same subject as the sketch The sandpit at Dekkersduin near The Hague (F 1028 / JH 367), which Vincent had sent to Theo with letter 348. The drawings, which Van Gogh also calls ‘team of workmen labouring’, are mentioned in letters 348-357.
Letter 535, n. 15, changed to:
Cf. letter 534, where Van Gogh also talked about Hals’s use of yellow. He borrowed the term “jaune chamois” from Thoré, who used it in connection with Hals’s Merry drinker (see Thoré 1858-1860, vol. 1, p. 60).
Letter 539, n. 19:
‘letter 534’ changed to ‘letters 534 and 535’.
Letter 545:
Notes 4 and 5 have been reversed.
Letter 549, n. 4:
‘The Grote Markt (F 1356 / JH 974) and The spire of the Church of Our Lady (F 1352 / JH 975)’ changed to: ‘The Grote Markt (F 1352 / JH 975) and The spire of the Church of Our Lady (F 1356 / JH 974)’.
Letter 611, n. 4, changed to:
It emerges … that the Charpentier gallery had sold five small paintings … 38 x 46 cm. See J. B. de la Faille, ‘Sammler und Markt. Unbekannte bilder von Vincent van Gogh’, Der Cicerone, February 1927, pp. 101-105. F 290 must have been one …
Letter 641, n. 1:
The last five paragraphs have been moved to letter 643, n. 1.
Letter 665:
Notes 10 and 11 have been reversed.
Chronology, 1888, changed to:
About 19 June
Has read Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème (628).
23 June
Sends a drawing to Theo (630).
July
Reads Balzac’s César Birotteau. Decides to re-read all of Balzac’s novels (636, 637).
Images
Letter 77, n. 1:
New image and caption: A moss animal (Flustra foliacea) and a hydroid (Hydrallmania falcata) (ill. 1918).
Letter 160, n. 2:
Images of the illustrations from Zahn have been added (ills. 3094, 3095, 3096, 3097 and 3098).
Letter 446, n. 1:
New image of Plan of Van Gogh’s studio at Heieind (ill. 2121).
Letter 491:
New images of the letter (recto and verso).
Letter 689:
Image of enclosed sketch corrected through reversal.
Credit lines
Vincent van Gogh, The viaduct (F 480 / JH 1603): ‘Kunsthaus Zurich’ changed to ‘Private collection’.
Vincent van Gogh, Cart with black ox (F 39 / JH 505): Portland Art Museum, Gift of Fred and Frances Sohn.
Concordance
This edition / Collected Letters (CL)
Letter 343 = CL 285
Letter 384 = CL 322
Letter 423 = CL 352
Letter 424 = CL -
Letter 496 = CL 403
Letter 504 = CL R51
Letter 514 = CL R52
Letter 564 = CL 456
Letter 616 = CL 493
Letter 732 = CL 568
Letter 885 = CL 641a