The Blussé & Van Braam bookshop is pictured in this view courtesy of the Regional Archives of Dordrecht, Netherlands, Netherlands and their website (access by clicking on link).
Even though he has been preaching and teaching Sunday school, Vincent is encouraged by his father and mother to pursue a more formal education on the order of 8 years of schooling to become a pastor or to pursue some other “normal” and honorable career. A friend of Vincent’s father hears from his son about their desire to find Vincent a respectable job and Vincent writes to his brother of the conversation that ends up moving him to Dordrecht.
“Etten, 31 December 1876
My dear Theo,
To Theo. Etten, Sunday, 31 December 1876
9 January
Becomes a general assistant in the Blussé & Van Braam bookshop in Dordrecht. Lodges with the corn chandler Pieter Rijken in Tolbrugstraat A312; his fellow lodger is P. C. Görlitz (101, 102).
16 February
Visits the Dordrechts Museum with his father (FR b2507). He goes again on 25 February with Theo (103).
18 March
Vincent and Theo visit the Museum Van der Hoop in Amsterdam (108, 111).
1 April
Vincent and Theo spend Easter in Etten (FR b2519).
8-9 April
Vincent is in Zundert and Etten (110).
About 2-14 May
Is in Etten. Spends a day with Theo in The Hague, where they visit their cousin by marriage, the painter Anton Mauve (114, 137).
14 May
Moves to Amsterdam to prepare himself for his theological studies (FR b959). Is taught Latin and Greek by Maurits Mendes da Costa (120). Lives with his uncle, Jan van Gogh, director of the naval dockyard, at Grote Kattenburgerstraat 3.
August
Reads Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque (125).
September
Transcribes the whole French edition of Thomas a Kempis’s De imitatione Christi and reads Bossuet’s Oraisons funèbres (129).
7 September
Visits the Trippenhuis (twice) (130).
18 September
Visits the Trippenhuis to see the etchings by Rembrandt (131).
20 September
Visits the Trippenhuis again and leaves his signature in the visitors’ book (131).
October
Reads Dickens’s A tale of two cities and Carlyle’s The French Revolution (132).
Early October
Theo is on a business trip and visits Vincent in Amsterdam (FR b2562).
End of December-7 January
Vincent is in Etten. Theo is also there for Christmas (138).
The Blussé & Van Braam bookshop is pictured in this view courtesy of the Regional Archives of Dordrecht, Netherlands, Netherlands and their website (access by clicking on link).
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