Title The Lighthouse at Honfleur Creator Georges Seurat Date Created 1886 Physical Dimensions overall 66.7 x 81.9 cm (26 1/4 x 32 1/4 in.) framed 94.6 x 109.4 x 10.3 cm (37 1/4 x 43 1/16 x 4 1/16 in.) Provenance From the artist 1887 to Emile Verhaeren, Paris. Curt von M¨¹tzenbecher, Wiesbaden, by 1907. (Bernheim-Jeune, Paris) from 1909 until 1913.[1] Richard Goetz, Paris, from 1913; (Goetz sale, H?tel Drouot, Paris, 23 February 1922, no. 181);[2] acquired from Goetz in June 1929 through (Dr. Alfred Gold [1874-1958]) by (C¨¦sar de Hauke, New York);[3] on joint account from 1929 with (Alex Reid & Lef¨¨vre, London) and (Jacques Seligmann et Cie., New York and Paris); sold 1934 via (Alex Reid & Lefevre, London) to Mrs. Alfred Chester Beatty [n¨¦e 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] Although the purchaser according to annotated copy of sales catalogue in Knoedler library [Knoedler microfiche, French no. 0896] was called Grunewald, this appears to mean that the picture was bought in and/or sold back to Goetz as it was sold by Goetz through Dr. Alfred Gold in 1929. Goetz was a German national whose property was sequestered by the French government during the First World War and sold at this auction in 1922. According to Dorra and Rewald's catalogue raisonn¨¦ of Seurat, no. 168, Goetz had tried to donate this picture to the Louvre at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, but it was refused. [2] Lent by Bernheim-Jeune to 1910-1911 exhibition at Grafton Galleries, London. [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 & Lef¨¨vre until its sale in 1934. Reid & Lef¨¨vre 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. (Lef¨¨vre 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. Rights CC0 Medium oil on canvas
