A prim and eager young clerk, working for his art-dealer uncle, is writing to his schoolboy brother. Pictures and books are the 19-year-old's meat and drink: he soon adds Millais, Dickens and George Eliot to his love for Jean-François Millet, when in 1873, Goupil & Co, agents in lithographs, steel engravings and 'modern paintings', send him from The Hague to their branch just off the Strand. They are 'such a fine firm': he is 'really very happy' that Theo will be joining them too. With one hand pressed to his heart, this earnest youth sets the other on his brother's shoulder: 'Theo, I must recommend that you start smoking a pipe. It does you a lot of good when you're out of spirits, as I quite often am nowadays.'

LRB 5 November 2009 | PDF Download