In response to:

His Own Worst Enemy from the May 13, 2021 issue

To the Editors:

It has been pointed out to me that I was mistaken when I wrote in my review of Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters [NYR, May 13] that in his lifetime the painter never sold a single picture. In fact, in 1890 Anna Boch, the painter sister of the Belgian artist Eugène Boch, who had sat for Van Gogh, bought his painting The Red Vineyard for four hundred francs, about $2,000 in today’s money. I suspect the purchase was a gesture of solidarity by a kindly woman to a fellow artist, which is probably why it slipped my mind.

John Banville
Dublin, Ireland