Regular monthly wages

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 3 June 1883

Boughton and Abbey together are making drawings called “Picturesque Holland” for Harper's in New York (agent for the Graphic too). . . . Now I say to myself, If the Graphic and Harper's send their draftsmen to Holland, perhaps they would not be unwilling to take on a draftsman from Holland if he can produce some good work and not too expensively.

I should prefer being put on regular monthly wages to selling a drawing now and then at a relatively high price. And I should like to make a contract for a series of compositions, for instance, following up these two drawings I am working on now, or those I am going to do. I should think it advisable to go to London myself with studies and drawings and to visit the managers of the various establishments or, better still, the artists Herkomer, Green, Boughton (but some of them are in America at present) or others, if they are in London. . . . Such a thing, more or less modified, ought to be done, I think.

Letter 288
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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