Sir Alfred Chester Beatty

British, 1875 - 1968

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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, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.33

The Lighthouse at Honfleur

Georges Seurat · 1886 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1983.1.33

Bibliography

1985

  • Wilson, A.J. The Life and Times of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. London, 1985.

1987

  • Kennedy, Brian. "Sir Alfred Chester Beatty and the NGI." Irish Arts Review 4, no. 1 (1987):41-51

2003

  • Horton, Charles. Alfred Chester Beatty: From Miner to Bibliophile. Dublin, 2003