Brief Report

The Belgian Neo-impressionist Théo van Rysselberghe, who was greatly influenced by Seurat, stayed many times at the seaside resort of Le Lavandou on the French Riviera, whose coast is depicted here. Not long afterwards, he moved here. The present landscape was painted by the artist on an unprimed board in the standard P10 size. Verso the board was given a grey-green coat applied with a palette knife, there are no discernible dealer’s marks (figs 2, 4). The painting is based on a complete underdrawing in a deep-black, soft drawing medium, which can be seen well in the IR reflectogram (fig. 6). It takes microscopic inspection to reveal that the three goats in the foreground, which cannot be seen in the IR reflectogram because of the impasto white paint, were only added during the painting process using a graphite or lead pencil with a metallic sheen (fig. 9). These too were painted in the next phase of work. The paints were applied both wet-in-wet and wet-on- dry, from semi-transparent to opaque. The direction of the brushstrokes was often oriented to the depicted motifs (figs 8, 10, 11). The high-gloss varnish is not authentic, and gives a false impression of the original character of the picture, which was, presumably, more pastel-like.

Theo van Rysselberghe
Le Lavandou, Var, 1908, oil on cardboard, 37.8 x 55.0 cm, WRM Dep. FC 617

Theo van Rysselberghe

born on 23 November 1862 in Gent,
died on 13 December 1926 in Saint-Clair, France

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso, with detail of the side view of the board, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

Raking light verso, the use of a palette-knife for the application of the coat verso is discernible


Fig. 05

UV fluorescence


Fig. 06

IR reflectogram


Fig. 07

Details, monogram and date in incident light (left) and under UV
stimulation (right)


Fig. 08

Detail, underdrawing of the landscape areas with some black drawing medium, top right microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 09

Detail and microscopic photographs of the goats, which were  only added later in the painting process, with underdrawing lines; the illustrations at the top show the metallic sheen of the black drawing medium, probably a graphite pencil, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 10

Detail top centre, lay-in in paint and execution of the cliff


Fig. 11

Detail, loosely applied, directional paint applications in the bottom right-hand corner


Fig. 12

Paint-layer, fingerprint in the wet paint on the top edge,  microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)