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Painted entirely with small dots of pure color mostly in slate and azure blue, olive green, and cream white, this scene shows a sandy beach stretching to a lighthouse at the center and a four-story building to our right in this horizontal seascape. The tall, slender lighthouse standing on the water’s edge a short distance from us is painted with specks of azure and sky blue, ivory, and peach. In the distance to our left, a pier stretches into the sea along the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up this composition. A sailboat floats just off the pier, near the left edge of the painting. To our right of the lighthouse and extending off the right edge of the canvas, the building has three levels of windows and a row of dormers along the tall, peaked roof. The building is painted with touches of dove gray, sapphire blue, and pale pink. In front of the building and to our right, a denim-blue shed has a tangerine-orange roof. A wooden rowboat outlined in cornflower blue with flecks of dandelion yellow rests on the sand next to the shed. In front of us, dots of moss green blend into the blond tones of the sand, creating an impression of grass on the beach. Sunlight shimmers on the sea to our left, which is painted with short dashes of mint and seafoam green, baby blue, cream, and shell pink, beneath a clear, ice-blue sky.

Georges Seurat

The Lighthouse at Honfleur, 1886

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 88

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 66.7 × 81.9 cm (26 1/4 × 32 1/4 in.)

framed: 86.36 × 101.6 × 7.62 cm (34 × 40 × 3 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1983.1.33

Artists / Makers

Georges Seurat (artist) French, 1859 - 1891

Image Use

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Overview

Seurat showed works similar to The Lighthouse at Honfleur in 1886 at the eighth and last impressionist exhibition, an event that established him as a leading modernist. Based on new theories about optical characteristics of light and color, Seurat invented a technique called pointillism, or divisionism, as a scientifically objective form of impressionism. Seurat juxtaposed minute touches of unmixed pigments in hues corresponding to the perceived local color, the color of light, the complement of the local color for shadow, and reflected color of nearby areas, which in principle will combine visually when viewed from the proper distance. This meticulous technique, less random than impressionism, enabled Seurat to record appearances more accurately while preserving the fresh, natural qualities he admired in impressionist works.

Following the intensive studio campaign leading to the exhibition of Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande-Jatte (Art Institute of Chicago), a controversial work also shown at the 1886 exhibition, Seurat spent the summer at Honfleur, a coastal resort near Le Havre. He relaxed by painting local landmarks such as the hospice and lighthouse in The Lighthouse at Honfleur. Balancing warm blond tones in the sand and lighthouse with cool blues in the sky and water and constructing a stable composition around the horizontals of the jetty and horizon crossed by the vertical tower, Seurat created a work of majestic serenity.

Inscription

lower left: Seurat

Provenance

From the artist 1887 to Emile Verhaeren, Paris. Curt von Mützenbecher, Wiesbaden, by 1907. (Bernheim-Jeune, Paris) from 1909 until 1913.[1] Richard Goetz, Paris, from 1913; (sale of his sequestered property, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 23 February 1922, no. 181);[2] acquired from Goetz in June 1929 through (Dr. Alfred Gold [1874-1958]) by (César de Hauke, New York);[3] on joint account from 1929 with (Alex Reid & Lefèvre, London) and (Jacques Seligmann et Cie., New York and Paris); sold 1934 via (Alex Reid & Lefevre, London) to Mrs. Alfred Chester Beatty [née Edith Dunn Stone, d. 1952], London;[4] by inheritance to Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, London [d. 1968]. (Arthur Tooth and Sons, London); sold 1965 to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA; gift 1983 to NGA.

[1] Lent by Bernheim-Jeune to 1910-1911 exhibition at Grafton Galleries, London.

[2] Goetz was a German national whose property was sequestered by the French government during the First World War and sold at this 1922 auction. The purchaser, according to the annotated copy of the sales catalogue in the Knoedler library [Knoedler microfiche, French no. 0896], was "Grunewald." This likely refers to Isaac Grünewald, a Swedish artist who had gone to Paris in 1908 to study with Matisse and was part of a group of German and German-speaking artists in Paris, including Goetz, who gathered at the Café du Dôme before WWI (see Pariser Begegnungen 1904-1914, exh. cat. Duisburg, 1965, and Annette Gautherie-Kampka, Les Allemands du Dôme, Bern, 1995.) Grünewald, who took over Goetz's Paris studio in 1921, quite possibly purchased the painting for Goetz, as it was the latter who then later sold it through Dr. Alfred Gold in 1929. Goetz returned to France after WWI and rebuilt his collection before moving to New York in 1939. According to Henri Dorra and John Rewald's catalogue raisonné of Seurat's paintings, no. 168, Goetz had tried to donate this picture to the Louvre at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, but it was refused.

[3] See de Hauke records in the Seligmann papers at the Archives of American Art, box 406 (copies in NGA curatorial files). See also correspondence between de Hauke and Dr. Alfred Gold regarding Gold's commission, and Gold's correspondence with Goetz, in Seligmann papers, box 394 (copies in NGA curatorial files).

[4] The painting was still on de Hauke's books when his gallery closed, and its association with Seligmann dissolved, in 1931. It was then on joint account with Seligmann and Alex Reid & Lefèvre until its sale in 1934. Reid & Lefèvre Paintings Sold, sheet no. 248, #116/29 B1572 gives acquisition source as Wilhelm Lowenstein. However, Gold's correspondence with Richard Goetz (see n. 3 above) makes it clear that Goetz still owned the painting in 1929; perhaps Lowenstein acted as an intermediary. (Lefèvre archives, Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, Tate Britain, London, TGA 2002/11, Box 283). See also the Seligmann papers at the Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C., boxes 7, 177, 406-407 (copies in NGA curatorial files), and Germain Seligman, Merchants of Art, 1880-1960: Eighty Years of Professional Collecting, New York, 1961: 206, pl. 64b.

Associated Names

Beatty, Alfred Chester, Mrs.
Beatty, Alfred Chester, Sir
Bernheim-Jeune
Drouot, Hôtel
Goetz, Richard
Gold, Alfred, Dr.
Hauke, César Mange de
Lowenstein, Wilhelm
Mellon, Paul
Mützenbecher, Curt von
Reid & Lefèvre, Ltd, Alex
Seligmann & Cie., Jacques
Tooth & Sons, Ltd., Arthur
Verhaeren, Emile

Exhibition History

1886: Les impressionnistes, Salle IX, Palais du Cours Saint-André, Nantes, 1886-1887, no. 968.

1887: Salon des indépendants: Sociéte dea artistes indépendants, 3e exposition, Pavillon de la Ville de Paris, 1887, no. 439.

1903: XVI Ausstellung der Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs Secession Wien: Entwinklung des Impressionismus in Malerei u. Plastik, Vienna, 1903, no. 116.

1910: Manet and the Post-Impressionists, Grafton Galleries, London, 1910-1911, no. 55.

1929: First Loan Exhibition, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1929, no. 60, repro.

1931: The Landscape in French Painting, M. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1931, no. 27, repro.

1934: Renoir - Cezanne and their Contemporaries, Alex. Reid and Lefevre, Ltd. (The Lefevre Galleries), London, 1934, no. 34, repro.

1966: French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 143, repro

1980: Post-Impressionism: Cross-Currents in European and American Painting 1880-1906, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980, no. 89, repro.

1986: Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist

1986: The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886, National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986, no. 155

1987: The Aura of Neo-Impressionism: The Holliday Collection, Indianapolis Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, 1986-1987 (shown only in Atlanta).

1990: Französische Impressionisten und ihre Wegbereiter aus der National Gallery of Art, Washington und dem Cincinnati Art Museum, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, 1990, no. 65, repro.

1991: Georges Seurat 1859-1891, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1991-1992

1999: An Enduring Legacy: Masterpieces from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1999-2000, no cat.

2004: Seurat and the Making of the Grande Jatte, Art Institute of Chicago, 2004, no. 88

2007: Georges Seurat: The Drawings. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007, no. 121, repro.

2009: Georges Seurat: Figures in Space, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2009-2010, no. 57, repro.

2011: Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Art Center, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2011, no. 47, repro.

2014: Seurat - Master of Pointillism, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, 2014, no. 439, repro.

2018: Nantes, 1886: le scandale impressionniste, Musée d'arts de Nantes, 2018-2019, no. 56, repro.

Bibliography

1936: Bulliet, C. J. The Significant Moderns and Their Pictures. New York, 1936: repro. no. 24.

1959: Dorra, Henri, and John Rewald. Seurat, l'oeuvre peint, biographie et catalogue critique. Paris, 1959: no. 168, repro.

1966: Goldwater, Robert. "The Glory that was France." Art News 65 (March 1966): 85, repro. 48.

1966: Kuh, Katherine. "Golden Loans for a Silver Anniversary." Saturday Review (19 March 1966): repro. p. 49.

1966: Neugass, Fritz. "Jubiläumsschau in der National-Galerie in Washington." Weltkunst XXXVI, no. 8 (15 April 1966): 335, repro.

1966: Young, Mahonri Sharp. "The Mellon Collections: The Great Years of French Painting." Apollo 83 (June 1966): 433, repro. 430.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 512, no. 768, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 372, repro.

1987: Kennedy, Brian. "Sir Alfred Chester Beatty and the NGI." Irish Arts Review 4, no. 1 (1987):45, repro.

1990: Französische Impressionisten und ihre Wegbereiter aus der National Gallery of Art, Washington und dem Cincinnati Art Museum. Exh. cat. Neue Pinakothek, Munich, 1990: no. 65, repro.

1991: Grenier, Catherine. Seurat: Catalogue complet des peintures. Paris, 1991: no. 177, repro.

1991: Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 277, 279, color repro.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 197, repro.

1995: Zimmermann, Michael F. "Die 'Erfindung' Pieros und seine Wahlverwandtschaft mit Seurat." Studies in the History of Art 48 (1995): 286-287, repro. no. 13.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 392-393, no. 327, color repro.

2014: Kelly, Franklin. "A Lasting Legacy: The Completion of an Unparalleled Gift." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 51 (Fall 2014): 10-11, repro.