Around the same time Gauguin received news that a collector named Depuis had agreed to purchase Breton Girls in a Ring (provided the artist made a minor modification), that two other of his canvasses had definitely sold, and — perhaps most significantly for Gauguin — that Edgar Degas intended to buy one of his paintings.
Gauguin wrote to his friend Emile Schuffenecker with the good news of his invitation from Les XX.
Gauguin quickly rejected this invitation due to a review that had appeared in the Revue almost a year earlier; it had been written by Félix Fénéon, and the artist had been described as grièche.
In the days preceding his depart for Arles, Gauguin probably shipped all of his work executed since his arrival in Pont-Aven to Theo van Gogh in Paris: the recent catalogue raisonné by Daniel Wildenstein lists more than fifty paintings, altogether.
Evidently, he left only some minor studies back in the Yellow House – which he now offered Vincent van Gogh in exchange for the major version of the Sunflowers – and his "masques et gants d'armes".