Letter 04/13/1888 - by Vincent van Gogh

I should tell you that I'm working on the two pictures I wanted to make copies of. The pink peach tree is giving me the most trouble.

You can see from the three squares on the other page that the three orchards go together more or less. I now also have a small pear tree in vertical format also placed between two horizontal canvases. That will make six canvases of orchards in blossom. Every day now I try to work on them a little more and give them a certain unity.

I still hope to do three more, forming a set, but as yet these are only at the stage of embryos or fetuses.

I'd really like to complete this set of nine canvases.

You see we could well think of this year's nine canvases as the groundwork for an eventual, much larger decorative scheme (consisting of size 25 and size 12 canvases), to be executed next year during the same season from exactly the same subjects.

Here is the other middle piece of the size 12 canvases.

The ground is violet; in the background there's a wall with straight poplars and a very blue sky. The small pear tree has a violet trunk and white blossom, and a large yellow butterfly on one of the clusters. On the left, in the corner, is a small garden with a yellow reed fence, green bushes, and a flowerbed. A small pink house. There, those are the details of the decorative scheme of orchards in blossom that I've been planning for you.

The only thing is that the last three canvases are still only in a draft form and should show a very large orchard bordered by cypresses and with large pear and apple trees.