Letter 644 Auvers-sur-Oise, 24 or 25 June 1890
My dear Theo,
Many thanks for your letter and for the 50-franc note it contained. The exchange you have made with Bock is very good, and I am very curious to see what he is doing now.
I hope that Jo is better, as you say that she has been indisposed. Certainly you must come here as soon as possible; nature is very, very beautiful here and I am longing to see you again.
M. Peyron wrote to me two days ago, enclosed is his letter. I told him that I thought about 10 francs for the servants would be enough.
The canvases have arrived now from there; the irises [F 678, JH 1977; F 680, JH 1978] are quite dry and I hope you will see something in it, and there are also the roses [F 681, JH 1976; F 682, JH 1979], a wheat field [F 807, JH 1980], a little canvas with mountains and finally a cypress with a star [F 683, JH 1982].
Last week I did a portrait of a girl of about sixteen, in blue against a blue background, the daughter of the people with whom I am staying. I have given her this portrait [F 768, JH 2035], but I made a variant of it for you, a size 15 canvas [F 769, JH 2037].
Then I have a canvas 40 inches long and only 20 inches high, of wheat fields [F 775, JH 2038], and one which is a pendant to it, of undergrowth, lilac poplar trunks and at their foot, grass with flowers, pink, yellow, white and various greens [F 773, JH 2041]. Lastly, an evening effect �two pear trees quite black against a yellowing sky, with some wheat, and in the violet background the château surrounded by somber greenery [F 770, JH 2040].
The Dutchman works quite diligently, but he still has quite a few illusions about the originality of his way of seeing things. He is doing studies almost like what Koning did, a little grey, a little green, with a red roof and a whitish road. What is one to say in a case like this? If he has money, then certainly he does well to paint, but if he has to intrigue a lot to make sales, I pity him because he does paintings and the others because they buy them at a relatively excessive price. He will get there though, if only he works diligently every day. But alone or with painters who work little, he won't come to much, I think.
I hope to do the portrait of Mlle. Gachet next week, and perhaps I shall have a country girl pose too. I am glad that Bock made that exchange with me, for I thought that, being friends, they really paid a comparatively big price for the other canvas.
A little later on I should very much like to come to Paris for several days just to go and look up Quost and Jeannin and one or two others. I should very much like you to have a Quost, and there might probably be some way of exchanging one. Good luck to the little one and a good handshake for you and Jo.
[Here the letter stops half way down the page.]