Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(17 October 1888)
My dear Theo, I am overjoyed to hear what you tell me of your two new friends. 1 But all the same it amazes me that you tell me about them and their frame (at, if my memory serves me, 2000 fr.) and never a word of what was inside that frame, nor a single word of what they had done in the way of painting. Perhaps it is because you think that I may have heard of them, but I declare it is the first time I have heard of this business, and even of the men themselves. So being ignorant of things, I should like to ask, “Yes, yes, so much for the frame, but what was there inside it, and what are they actually doing?” After that I shall certainly be better able to get some idea of what their conversations with you and Pissarro were, once I have some notion of what they themselves are doing. In any case it proves one thing, that the Dutch artists have spoken of you as the dealer in impressionist pictures, and we must not lose sight of that. Then what did they tell you of Dutch art, Breitner and Rappard and others, and ... |
