Brief Report
This little panel is one of a series of more than 20 extant studies which Lemmen painted during a
summer sojourn on the Belgian coast at Heyst [cf. Heyst no 16, WRM Dep. FC 716]. Here Lemmen depicts a section of the coast with a view of the open sea in evening light, documenting the date and time precisely with an inscription verso (“Heyst 21 juillet 91 / 8 le soir“, i.e. 21 July 1891, 8 pm) (fig. 5). The pale poplar panel (panneau d’étude) in the standard M1 size was unprimed and to start with briskly covered with horizontal brushstrokes in the basic colours of the major areas of the sky, sea and beach. The horizon here served as orientation, but was largely left unpainted at this stage. Lemmen then placed Pointillist dabs in an undogmatic manner on the still wet paint, thus breaking up the swathes of colour (figs. 11, 12). The painting becomes looser towards the sides of the picture. The character of this oil study was seriously altered by someone else at a later date, in that the open areas in particular were overpainted consistently, albeit in a quality deviating in technique and colour from the original (figs 4, 8, 9). The picture support exhibits two notches in the top edge and one in the bottom edge (positions, top, from left: 10.0 and 11.2 cm; bottom, from left, 10.5 cm); these notches could be the traces of the picture’s being attached to a painting box or a case used for transport.
Georges Lemmen
The Coast at Heyst, 1891, oil on poplar, 12.3 x 21.5 cm, WRM Dep. FC 715
Georges Lemmen
born on 25 November 1865 in Schaarbeek, near Bruxelles,
died in July 1916 in Ukkel
Further illustrations:
Fig. 02
Verso
Fig. 03
Raking light
Fig. 04
UV fluorescence
Fig. 05
Detail, inscription verso “21 juillet 91 / 8 le soir”
Fig. 06
Signature, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 07
Estate administrator’s (?) stamp on paper sticker verso, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 08
Detail, revisions by another hand at the right-hand edge of the panel
Fig. 09
Detail as fig. 8, falsecolour IR reflectogram clearly revealing revisions at the righthand edge
Fig. 10
Impasto dots of paint squashed at the top and with browned varnish in the crevices, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 11
Varied surface relief resulting from dots of paint, revision at lefthand edge, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 12
Individual dots of paint on the broader areas of colour, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)
