It will serve me in another way

I bought that suit for a reason other than wearing it myself as long as possible: when I can wear it no longer, it will serve me in another way. For you should know that eventually I must have a small collection of workmen's clothes in which to dress the models for my drawings. For instance, a Brabant blue smock, the grey linen suit that the miners wear and their leather hat, then a straw hat and wooden shoes, a fisherman's outfit of yellow oilskin and a sou'wester....

I certainly do not intend to buy all this at once, but to collect it gradually piece by piece, when I have a chance. And as those clothes can be bought second-hand, they are not at all difficult to get. I shall only be able to manage this well when I have some kind of studio of my own.

To His Parents, from Brussels, 16 February 1881, Letter 141
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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