...n Gogh’s memory is playing him false. The ‘orange, white, blue chap’ in this painting is not wearing a yellow leather suit – he is dressed in the pearl-grey satin doublet and darker grey breeches that Van Gogh raved about in letter 534. There is a man in the centre of the same painting who is wearing a buff-coloured coat that might well be leather. See for this figure in The company of Captain Reynier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz. Blaeuw (‘The meagre company’) by Hals and Codde: letter 534, nn. 4 and 6...
...ls painted several group portraits of officers. Van Gogh certainly knew the large canvas painted jointly by Hals and Pieter Codde: The company of Captain Reynier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz Blaeuw (‘The meagre company’): see letter 534, n. 4.The company of Captain Reynier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz Blaeuw (‘The meagre company’)...