The Port of Honfleur

Georges Seurat (1859–1891)

1886

Conté crayon on paper

This highly finished drawing is reunited here with its related painting (number 8) for the first time since the dispersal of Georges Seurat’s studio in 1891. In Honfleur, Seurat produced not only oil sketches but also large drawings. He always used the same medium, a type of crayon made of compressed graphite and carbon black that had been patented a century earlier by Nicolas-Jacques Conté. Seurat favoured it over charcoal or pastel as it does not smudge but allows for a variety of tones depending on the pressure applied. Seurat’s crayon sometimes skipped over the ridges of his heavily textured paper. These areas of white create points of light that look like reflections on the water and clouds.

Private collection, Germany