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 all 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 are quite dry and I hope you will find something in it, and there are also the roses, a field of wheat, a little canvas with mountains and finally a cypress with a star.

This week I have done a portrait of a girl of about 16, in blue against a blue background, the daughter of the people I am lodging with. I have given her this portrait, but I made a variant of it for you, a size 15 canvas.

Then I have a long canvas one meter by just 50 centimeters high, of wheat fields, and one which makes a pendant, of undergrowth, lilac poplar trunks and below them grass with flowers, pink, yellow, white and various greens. Lastly, an evening effect - two pear trees all black against a yellowing sky, with some wheat, and in the violet background the château surrounded by somber greenery.

The Dutchman works quite diligently, but still has many illusions about the originality of his way of seeing things. He is doing studies somewhat like those 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 would do well to paint, but if he has to intrigue a lot to make sales, I pity him because he does paintings like 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 find that, between friends, they have paid a little dearly relatively 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. Gachet came today to look at the canvases of the Midi. Good luck with the little one and a good handshake in thought to you and Jo.

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