curatorial

Twenty-two-year-old Paul Signac had been a professional artist for only six years when he painted The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely. After his father’s premature death in 1880, Signac left school, rented an apartment in the Paris neighborhood of Montmartre, and immersed himself in avant-garde art and literature. In June of that year, he attended Claude Monet’s (1840–1926) inaugural solo show, an experience that convinced him of his own artistic vocation.¹The exhibition in question was Le peintre Claude Monet at the Galerie du journal illustré La Vie Moderne, 7 boulevard des Italiens, Paris, which opened June 7, 1880. For the impact of this show on Signac’s career choice, see Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac: 1863–1935, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 69. Over the next half-decade, he befriended established and up-and-coming painters, helped found the Société des Artistes IndépendantsSociété des Artistes Indépendants: A group founded in 1884 in Paris by Odilon Redon, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Georges Seurat, and Paul Signac that created the Salon des Indépendants as an alternative to exhibiting at the Salon organized and juried by the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture). The Salon des Indépendants has no selection committee; instead, artists can exhibit on payment of a fee. The exhibitions became the main venue for many artists, particularly the Post-Impressionists in the late nineteenth century. The Salon des Indépendants is still in existence today. See also Salon, the. in 1884, and—crucially—met Georges Seurat (1859–91) just as the latter was rethinking his approach to color and developing a bold new painting method known as pointillismpointillism: A technique of painting using tiny dots of pure colors, which when seen from a distance are blended by the viewer’s eye. It was developed by French Neo-Impressionist painters in the mid-1880s as a means of producing luminous effects., which became the defining feature of the movement now known as Neo-ImpressionismNeo-Impressionism: A term coined in 1886 by French art critic Félix Fénéon to describe a style of painting pioneered by Georges Seurat. He and his followers espoused a scientific approach to color and a painting technique known as pointillism..²For the nuances between pointillism and divisionism, see Floyd Ratcliff, Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism (New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1992), 37–38. Signac was among the first to embrace Seurat’s innovative ideas about color and technique, and his extant correspondence from the summer of 1886 attests to his initial struggles. He confided some of his frustrations to Camille Pissarro (1830–1903): “Have you discovered the useful method of dividing [color]? Me, I am having difficulties and wasting time, working a lot without any results. I believe I have made some strides, however.”³Paul Signac to Camille Pissarro, summer 1886, Archives de Camille Pissarro (Paris: Hotel Drouot, November 21, 1975), unpaginated, lot 166. “Avez-vous trouvé le moyen pratique de diviser? Moi je barbotte, perds mon temps, travaillant beaucoup sans aucun résultat. Je crois cependant avoir fait de progrès.” All translations are by Brigid M. Boyle. Signac’s assessment of his progress was perhaps too harsh, for changes in his painting practice are already evident in The Château Gaillard. Where previously Signac had emulated the fluid brushwork of the Impressionists, here he utilized dots of unmixed green and yellow pigment for both the foliage in the foreground and the grassy cliffs beyond. Signac used linear strokes for occasional tree branches and roof outlines, but he composed most of the scene with small touches of paint.

Set in Normandy, the Nelson-Atkins landscape depicts the riverfront communecommune: In France and French-speaking countries, a commune is a small administrative division governed by a mayor and municipal council. of Les Andelys, birthplace of French classical painter Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665). Located sixty miles northwest of Paris, this district is divided into two towns: Petit Andely, along the Seine River, and Grand Andely, further inland. Its artistic heritage and proximity to the capital appealed to Signac, who wished to remain near Paris during the summer of 1886 so that he could assist with the second annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants.⁴Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac, 121. Signac was a member of the hanging committee. He vacationed in Petit Andely from June to September, joined halfway through by Pissarro’s son Lucien (1863–1944), himself an aspiring artist.⁵Lucien Pissarro stayed with his cousin, Lionel Nunès, a lawyer. See Anne Thorold, The Letters of Lucien to Camille Pissarro, 1883–1903 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 70n2. During Signac’s sojourn, he completed ten oil paintings of the town and its environs. The Seine features prominently in this series; only the Kansas City work omits the river from view, focusing instead on the region’s most recognizable monument, the twelfth-century Château Gaillard. This fortress appears in the distant background of just one other picture from Signac’s 1886 campaign (Fig. 1). It seems to have interested him less as a motif than did the rippling water of the Seine, the arch bridges crisscrossing the river, and the buildings lining its shores.

Fig. 1. Paul Signac, Les Andelys, The Riverbank, 1886, oil on canvas, 25 11/16 x 32 1/16 in. (65.3 x 81.5 cm), Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 1996 6. © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph © Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France/Bridgeman Images

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Fig. 2. Lévy et Neurdein Réunis, Petit Andely, Ruines du Château Gaillard (Petit Andely, Ruins of the Château Gaillard), ca. 1920–32, postcard, 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (14 x 8.9 cm), collection of the author

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Fig. 3. Félix Vallotton, Square in Les Andelys with the Château Gaillard, 1924, oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 28 3/4 in. (100 x 73 cm), Musée Alphonse Georges Poulain, Vernon, France, inv. 90.10.1. Photograph © Musée Alphonse Georges Poulain, Ville de Vernon

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Fig. 4. Map of Petit Andely

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The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely is very good. Amid a jumble of greenery appears a large square roof, which undoubtedly crowns some old financier’s house, constructed under Louis XIV. On the sides, some traditional and more modern gables. And on the hill, dominant and still proud, the ruins of the feudal eyrie.¹⁶Robert Bernier, “Salon de la Société des Indépendants: 2me Exposition,” La Revue moderne littéraire, politique et artistique 2, no. 33 (September 20, 1886): 617. “Le Château Gaillard vu de ma fenêtre au Petit Andely est très bien. Dans un fouillis de verdure, apparaît un toit carré, massif, qui doit couronner sans doute quelque vieille maison de traitant, édifié sous Louis XIV. Sur les côtés, quelques pignons rustiques et plus récentes. Et sur la hauteur, dominantes et encore orgueilleuses, les ruines du vieux nid féodal.”

Bernier’s description proceeds from foreground to background, from eye level to mountaintop, and from the ordinary to the exceptional, effectively mapping out the scene for viewers. Despite the castle’s dilapidation, he contends, it retains something of its former splendor, imperiously overlooking the homes in its shadow.

Fig. 5. Paul Signac, Les Andelys, Château Gaillard, 1921, oil on canvas, 25 3/8 x 36 in. (64.5 x 91.5 cm), private collection. © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 2011

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Notes

1. The exhibition in question was Le peintre Claude Monet at the Galerie du journal illustré La Vie Moderne, 7 boulevard des Italiens, Paris, which opened June 7, 1880. For the impact of this show on Signac’s career choice, see Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac: 1863–1935, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 69.

2. For the nuances between pointillism and divisionism, see Floyd Ratcliff, Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism (New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1992), 37–38.

3. Paul Signac to Camille Pissarro, summer 1886, Archives de Camille Pissarro (Paris: Hotel Drouot, November 21, 1975), unpaginated, lot 166.
   “Avez-vous trouvé le moyen pratique de diviser? Moi je barbotte, perds mon temps, travaillant beaucoup sans aucun résultat. Je crois cependant avoir fait de progrès.” All translations are by Brigid M. Boyle.

4. Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac, 121. Signac was a member of the hanging committee.

5. Lucien Pissarro stayed with his cousin, Lionel Nunès, a lawyer. See Anne Thorold, The Letters of Lucien to Camille Pissarro, 1883–1903 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 70n2.

6. See, for example, Léon Coutil, Le Château Gaillard construit par Richard cœur-de-lion en 1197–1198: Notice historique et archéologique, 3rd ed. (Paris: Dumont and Lechevalier, 1906); and Dominique Pitte and Sophie Fourny-Dargère, Château-Gaillard: “Découverte d’un patrimoine,” exh. cat. (Vernon, France: Musée Alphonse Georges Poulain, 1995).

7. For a succinct account of the castle’s siege, see Dirk van Gorp, “The Fall of Château Gaillard,” Medieval Warfare 1, no. 1 (2011): 34–38.

8. Pitte and Fourny-Dargère, Château-Gaillard, 33–35. Charles II was imprisoned there in 1356.

9. Pitte and Fourny-Dargère, Château-Gaillard, 35–37.

10. See Pitte and Fourny-Dargère, Château-Gaillard, cats. 13, 22, 27, 45, and 56, pp. 96–97, 102–3, 106–7, 119–20, and 126–27.

11. Pitte and Fourny-Dargère, Château Gaillard, 126.

12. Vanessa Lecomte, “Paul Signac and Félix Vallotton in Les Andelys,” in Marina Ferretti Bocquillon, ed., Impressionism on the Seine, exh. cat. (Giverny: Musée des Impressionnismes, 2010), 62–63.

13. The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely is an English translation of the original title, Le château Gaillard, vu de ma fenêtre, Petit-Andely. See Société des Artistes indépendants: Peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, dessinateurs et architectes; Catalogue des œuvres exposées, exh. cat. (Paris: Imprimerie A. Lahure, 1886), 22, reproduced in Theodore Reff, ed., Modern Art in Paris: Two-Hundred Catalogues of the Major Exhibitions Reproduced in Facsimile in Forty-Seven Volumes, vol. 9, Salons of the “Indépendants” 1884–1891 (New York: Garland, 1981), unpaginated.

14. I am grateful to Françoise Baron, director of the Musée Nicolas Poussin, Les Andelys, for this information. The mill in question is no longer in service; today it is owned by Nicolas Blier, Maçons de tradition, a building company specializing in restoration projects.

15. Felix Fénéon, “Correspondance particulière de L’Art moderne: L’Impressionnisme aux Tuileries,” L’Art moderne, no. 38 (September 19, 1886): 301. Fénéon described the Les Andelys paintings as “les plus lumineuses” and then added: “Les couleurs s’y provoquent à d’éperdues escalades chromatiques, exultent, clament.”

16. Robert Bernier, “Salon de la Société des Indépendants: 2me Exposition,” La Revue moderne littéraire, politique et artistique 2, no. 33 (September 20, 1886): 617. “Le Château Gaillard vu de ma fenêtre au Petit Andely est très bien. Dans un fouillis de verdure, apparaît un toit carré, massif, qui doit couronner sans doute quelque vieille maison de traitant, édifié sous Louis XIV. Sur les côtés, quelques pignons rustiques et plus récentes. Et sur la hauteur, dominantes et encore orgueilleuses, les ruines du vieux nid féodal.” 

17. After 1910, Signac’s output in watercolor greatly exceeded his output in oil. See Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac, 20, 225.

18. This painting last appeared on the market in 2011. See Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale (New York: Sotheby’s, November 2, 2011), lot 49.

19. When Signac returned to Les Andelys in 1923 for what would be his final visit, he adopted the same formula for another painting of the fortress. See Impressionist/Modern: Evening Sale (London: Christie’s, June 23, 2010), lot 3, Les Andelys, matin, été.

conservation

The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely, one of Paul Signac’s early Neo-ImpressionistNeo-Impressionism: A term coined in 1886 by French art critic Félix Fénéon to describe a style of painting pioneered by Georges Seurat. He and his followers espoused a scientific approach to color and a painting technique known as pointillism.¹Many Neo-Impressionists had preferred terms for the movement: Seurat used “chromo-luminarism;” Pissarro called it “scientific impressionism;” and art critic Félix Fénéon coined the term “Neo-Impressionism” in 1886. Signac often referred to “Divisionism” and the divided brushstroke, though the term was primarily used in Italy for a specific sub-group of artists. See “Exposition au Musée: Neo-Impressionism from Seurat to Paul Klee,” Musee d’Orsay, accessed November 9, 2025, https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/whats-on/exhibitions/presentation/neo-impressionism-seurat-paul-klee, and Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon, Anne Distel, John Leighton, and Susan Alyson Stein, Signac: 1863–1935, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 18, 107. works, was painted on a fine, plain-weaveplain weave: A basic textile weave in which one weft thread alternates over and under the warp threads. Often this structure consists of one thread in each direction, but threads can be doubled (basket weave) or tripled to create more complex plain weave. Plain weave is sometimes called tabby weave. canvas of a size corresponding to a French standard-formatstandard-format supports: Commercially prepared supports available through art suppliers, which gained popularity in the nineteenth century during the industrialization of art materials. Available in three formats figure (portrait), paysage (landscape), and marine (marine), these were numbered 1 through 120 to indicate their size. For each numbered size, marine and paysage had two options available: a larger format (haute) and smaller (basse) format. no. 15 paysage basse.²An 1889 LeFranc et Cie catalog lists no. 15 paysage basse as 65 by 45.9 centimeters, while an 1888 Bourgeois Aîné refers to nearly the same size (65 x 46) as a no. 15 marine. See Anthea Callen, The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 15; and David Bomford, Jo Kirby, John Leighton, and Ashok Roy, Art in the Making: Impressionism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 46. The original stretcherstretcher: A wooden structure to which the painting’s canvas is attached. Unlike strainers, stretchers can be expanded slightly at the joints to improve canvas tension and avoid sagging due to humidity changes or aging. was replaced during a 1975 conservation treatment.³The treatment carried out by conservator Marco Grassi in 1975 was summarized as follows: “Cleaning. Preparation of pure linen canvas support. Preparation of new stretcher with counter-sunk inscriptions, etc., from old stretcher. Mounting on canvas at edges with glue paste, and wax resin. Restretching. Finishing with stripping and sealing. Minor restorations. Protective surfacing with non-wetting resin.” See correspondence from Dr. M. Roy Fisher, Wildenstein & Co., New York, to Professor Harry Bober, Institute of Fine Arts, New York, May 15, 1978, NAMA conservation file, F78-13. Sections of the original stretcher containing inscriptions were retained and incorporated into the current stretcher. The vertical crossbar contains an inscription which may have been written by the artist: “P. Signac Les Andelys” (Fig. 6). During the same treatment, the painting was edge linededge lining: A conservation technique used to strengthen/repair tacking margins that have weakened or failed. New fabric is adhered to the painting’s damaged tacking margins to allow the stretcher to exert its normal tensioning on the original canvas. See strip lining..⁴Treatment included what appears to be an early type of edge lining. A secondary fabric support spans the reverse of the original canvas; it is adhered only along the tacking margins and just beyond the fold-over edge into the picture plane. For more on this and similar techniques, see Rustin Levenson, “Strip Linings, Loose Linings, and Other Alternatives to Overall Linings,” in Conservation of Easel Paintings, ed. Joyce Hill Stoner and Rebecca Rushfield (London: Routledge, 2012), 408–14. The original tacking marginstacking margins: The outer edges of canvas that wrap around and are attached to the stretcher or strainer with tacks or staples. See also tacking edge. remain intact, and original tack holes along with corresponding cuspingcusping: A scalloped pattern along the canvas edges that relates to how the canvas was stretched. Primary cusping reveals where tacks secured the canvas to the support while the ground layer was applied. Secondary cusping can form when a pre-primed canvas is re-stretched by the artist prior to painting. indicate that the painting’s size has not been altered.

Fig. 6. Detail of the vertical crossmember of the stretcher, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886). An inscription, possibly in the artist’s hand, reads “P. Signac Les Andelys.”

fullscreen Fig. 6. Detail of the vertical crossmember of the stretcher, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886). An inscription, possibly in the artist’s hand, reads “P. Signac Les Andelys.”

Fig. 7. Photomicrograph of the unprimed, bare canvas between strokes of paint, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886)

fullscreen Fig. 7. Photomicrograph of the unprimed, bare canvas between strokes of paint, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886)

The canvas of the Nelson-Atkins painting has no ground layerground layer: An opaque preparatory layer applied to the support, either commercially or by the artist, to prevent absorption of the paint into the canvas or panel. See also priming layer. (Fig. 7); preliminary investigation suggests that the other Les Andelys canvases⁵See the accompanying “Related Works” section for a list of the nine other works completed during Signac’s stay in Les Andelys during the summer of 1886: Brigid M. Boyle, “Paul Signac, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely, 1886,” documentation, https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.728.4033. are also unprimed.⁶Canvases with high-resolution digital images available to examine were all found to lack a ground layer. Although Signac’s earliest works are on primed canvas,⁷For an example, see The Seine at Courbevoie (1883; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne). his first forays into Neo-Impressionism from the beginning of 1886 are on unprimed supports.⁸For an example, see Snow, Boulevard de Clichy, Paris (1886; Minneapolis Institute of Arts). Signac seems to have purchased chassis nus (bare stretchers)⁹See Lefranc et Cie’s 1889 catalogue in Anthea Callen, The Work of Art (London: Reaktion Books, 2015), 88–89. and unprimed canvas, “ready-sized, in rolls”¹⁰Callen discusses canvas being commercially available in this form in The Art of Impressionism, 68. and stretched the canvas himself. Without a ground layer, paint was absorbed into the canvas. There are a few areas in the composition in which thin, washwash: An application of thin paint that has been diluted with solvent.-like paint has stained the canvas without filling the weave pattern (Fig. 8).¹¹The same staining with preservation of the canvas weave is also visible over a much broader area in Signac’s The “Ponton de la Félicité” at Asnières (Opus no. 143) (1886; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam). Signac’s reasons for choosing unprimed canvas are unclear,¹²Signac may have used unprimed canvas in pursuit of a more matte surface, with the absorbency of the canvas pulling oil from the paint and leaving it drier and chalkier. See Callen, The Art of Impressionism, 67–68. but it lasted only briefly. His works of just a year or two later were painted on primed canvas,¹³By the time he painted Portrieux, The Bathing Cabins, Opus 185 (Beach of the Countess) (1888; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City), Signac had already returned to primed canvas supports. See Susan Pavlik Enterline, “Paul Signac, Portrieux, The Bathing Cabins, Opus 185 (Beach of the Countess), 1888,” technical entry, in this catalogue, https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.730.2088. and by 1899, he wrote that he and the Neo-Impressionists “paint only on supports covered with white, so that the light will show through the touches of color.”¹⁴Paul Signac, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme (Paris: Editions de La Revue Blanche, 1899), trans. in Floyd Ratliff, Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism (New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1992), 218.

Fig. 8. Detail of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing the bare canvas stained with green paint but still retaining the weave pattern

fullscreen Fig. 8. Detail of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing the bare canvas stained with green paint but still retaining the weave pattern

Fig. 9. Photomicrograph of small black particles of the dry media used for the underdrawing, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886). The particles are embedded along the edge of the paint at the interface with bare canvas.

fullscreen Fig. 9. Photomicrograph of small black particles of the dry media used for the underdrawing, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886). The particles are embedded along the edge of the paint at the interface with bare canvas.

Dark particles of dry media, likely Conté crayoncrayon: Traditionally, the French term crayon referred to a wide variety of fabricated, dry drawing media including ground and compressed chalks and pastels. For the purposes of this catalogue, crayon refers to a drawing medium where pigments, dyes, or a mixture of the two are mixed with wax, grease, or oils, or any combination of the three, and compressed into a stick., were picked up along the edges of wet brushstrokes at the interface of paint and bare canvas. This evidence of underdrawingunderdrawing: A drawn or painted sketch beneath the paint layer. The underdrawing can be made from dry materials, such as graphite or charcoal, or wet materials, such as ink or paint. is visible under magnification and appears mostly along the borders of forms, for example, around the two houses (Fig. 9). The radiographX-ray radiography (also referred to as x-radiography or radiography): Radiography is an examination tool analogous to the use of X-rays in medicine whereby denser components of a painted composition can be recorded as an inverted shadow image cast on film or a digital X-ray imaging plate from a source such as an X-ray tube. The method has been used for more than a century and is most effective with dense pigments incorporating metallic elements such as lead or zinc. It can reveal artist changes, underlying compositions, and information concerning the artwork’s construction and condition. The resulting image is called an x-radiograph or radiograph. It differs from the uses of X-ray spectrometry in being dependent on the density of the paint to absorb X-rays before they reach the film or image plate and being non-specific as to which elements are responsible for the resulting shadow image.¹⁵Digital radiograph composite, nos. 607.1-607.4, October 1, 2025, NAMA conservation file, F78-13. The digital radiograph was captured under the following conditions: 40 kV, 1 mA, and 10 seconds. shows dark areas between forms, indicating thin or no paint in these areas (Fig. 10). This suggests Signac first drew out the composition, then went back and painted within those boundaries. Though much of the underdrawing on bare canvas was likely dislodged and lost over time, an artist change in the right chimney of the left house seems to have preserved the friable dry media under a layer of paint, and it is visible in the infrared reflectograminfrared reflectogram: An infrared image captured with an electronic infrared imager, typically in the 1000-2500 nanometer range. See Infrared reflectography (IRR). (Fig. 11).

Fig. 10. Radiograph of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing dark, radio-transparent borders around forms, indicating little or no paint in those areas

fullscreen Fig. 10. Radiograph of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing dark, radio-transparent borders around forms, indicating little or no paint in those areas

Fig. 11. Details of the white house’s chimney, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886). On the left, an infrared reflectogram showing a faint outline of underdrawing. On the right, a detail in raking illumination showing evidence of reworking around the chimney.

fullscreen Fig. 11. Details of the white house’s chimney, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886). On the left, an infrared reflectogram showing a faint outline of underdrawing. On the right, a detail in raking illumination showing evidence of reworking around the chimney.

Key tenets in Neo-Impressionist theory include the use of pure colors, the division of colors on the canvas, and the contrast and gradation of colors within forms. Above all, the objective was “to achieve a maximum of brightness, color, and harmony.”¹⁶Signac provides an in-depth explanation of the methods and motivations of Neo-Impressionism in his 1899 book, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme. Purity of color was achieved through a broad palette devoid of black and earth colors. Signac described the colors on his palette as “the cadmiums,” vermilion, madder lake, cobalt violet, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, viridian,¹⁷Vert emeraude (Signac’s original words) was employed to designate viridian, a hydrated chromium (II) oxide pigment. The false cognate emerald green is a copper acetoarsenite-based pigment, and the similarity of the names led to confusion and conflation of what was sold. See Bomford et al., Art in the Making, 58–62. Localized XRF elemental mapping (MA-XRF) for a small part of the foliage area was carried out to explore concerns over possible emerald green deterioration voiced by Forrest R. Bailey, NAMA conservator, in a letter to Ralph T. Coe, director, April 25, 1978, NAMA conservation file, F78-13. Nearly identical distributions of copper and arsenic in elemental maps obtained by MA-XRF support the conclusion that these two elements are exclusively present in the form of emerald green. While a high potential for adverse pigment interaction exists between copper from emerald green and sulfide from cadmium yellow, no instances of darkening were noted. The distribution of chromium indicates that a group of greens and yellow-greens, complementary to those containing copper and arsenic, rely on chromium. Corresponding distributions of several other elements from chrome yellows of the time demonstrate that chrome yellows are present, probably in more than one type. Whether viridian (which would lack these other elements) is present in mixture cannot be determined from elemental information alone. The role of blue pigments used to produce green in mixture with any of the chrome yellows cannot be adequately addressed by MA-XRF. Therefore, the presence of viridian cannot be confirmed from the existing tests, due to the widespread occurrence of chrome yellow. See John Twilley, “XRF Elemental Mapping Detail from Signac’s Chateau Gaillard, F78-13,” February 22, 2026, NAMA conservation file, F78-13. composed (or mixed) green no. 1, composed (or mixed) green no. 2,¹⁸Callen describes the two composed (or mixed) greens as light and dark chrome green but does not share the source for this identification. See Anthea Callen, Techniques of the Impressionists (London: Greenwich Editions, 2004), 134. Chrome green is described as a mixture of chrome yellow and Prussian blue by Hermann Kühn and Mary Curran in “Chrome Yellow and Other Chromate Pigments” in Artists’ Pigments: A Handbook of their History and Characteristics, vol. 1, ed. Robert L. Feller (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, reprinted 2012), 189. The distribution of chromium indicates that many of the greens and yellow-greens rely on chromium, which could support Callen’s description of Signac’s composed greens if additional testing were to confirm the presence of Prussian blue. See Twilley, “XRF Elemental Mapping Detail from Signac’s Chateau Gaillard, F78-13.” and cadmium pale (Fig. 12).¹⁹The list of colors on Signac’s palette comes from a letter in the Amédée Ozenfant Collection, Cannes, and is reproduced in William Innes Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1985), 151: les cadmiums / vermilion / les laques garance / violet de cobalt / Bleu outremer / Bleu cobalt / '' coerulean / vert Emeraude / vert composé no 1 / '' '' no. 2. / cadmium pale. All translations are by Susan Pavlik Enterline unless otherwise noted. He later wrote, “The Neo-Impressionists, like the Impressionists, have only pure colors on their palette. But they totally reject any mixing on the palette, except, of course, the mixture of colors which are contiguous on the chromatic circle. An orange, mixed with a yellow and a red, a violet shading into red and blue, a green passing from blue to yellow, are, with white, the only elements at their disposal.”²⁰Signac, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme, trans. in Ratliff, Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism, 248.^{, 21}While Signac wrote about using “pure color” only, this almost never referred to use of a pure pigment without mixture. He describes some of his greens as composed (or mixed), and artists often employed complicated blends of pigments to achieve what they perceived to be a “pure color.” In addition, commercially made paints by this time were often complicated mixtures, sometimes bearing the names of colors they invoked rather than pigments they contained. See correspondence from John Twilley to Susan Pavlik Enterline, February 26, 2026. See also Aurore Malmert, Oulfa Belhadj, Christine Andraud, and Emeline Pouyet, “Unveiling the Materiality of 19th Century’s Color Spaces,” in Color Research and Application 50, no. 5 (September/October 2025): 1–12.

Fig. 12. A diagram of Signac’s palette, drawn by the artist (from a letter in the Amédée Ozenfant Collection, Cannes). From right to left: les cadmiums / vermilion / les laques garance / violet de cobalt / Bleu outremer / Bleu cobalt / '' coerulean / vert Emeraude / vert composé no 1 / '' '' no. 2. / cadmium pale. Reproduced in William Innes Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1985), 151.

fullscreen Fig. 12. A diagram of Signac’s palette, drawn by the artist (from a letter in the Amédée Ozenfant Collection, Cannes). From right to left: les cadmiums / vermilion / les laques garance / violet de cobalt / Bleu outremer / Bleu cobalt / '' coerulean / vert Emeraude / vert composé no 1 / '' '' no. 2. / cadmium pale. Reproduced in William Innes Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1985), 151.

The use of divided brushwork prevented the inadvertent mixture of the pure colors so important to the Neo-Impressionists. The technique is often referred to as pointillismpointillism: A technique of painting using tiny dots of pure colors, which when seen from a distance are blended by the viewer’s eye. It was developed by French Neo-Impressionist painters in the mid-1880s as a means of producing luminous effects. but is more accurately described as divisionism.²²Floyd Ratliff defines the difference in Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism, 35–36. His book also provides an in-depth description of the color theories understood and misunderstood by Signac and the other Neo-Impressionists. Signac began with loose, gestural brushwork before narrowing his mark-making and applying smaller, discrete dabs with more control and method.²³John Leighton notes the same progression in The Town Beach, Collioure (1887; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) in “Out of Seurat’s Shadow: Signac, 1863–1935,” in Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac: 1863–1935, 11. Signac applied much of his paint rather dryly, resulting in skips over the surface, showing the color of underlying brushstrokes or bare canvas. In the leftmost window of the central house, there is an area where Signac scraped earlier paint layers before then returning to continue painting (Fig. 13).²⁴Signac also scraped down intermediate paint layers in The Dining Room, Opus 152 (1886–87; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo). See Leighton, “Out of Seurat’s Shadow: Signac, 1863–1935,” in Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac: 1863–1935, 9. Though the majority of the brushwork is wet-over-drywet-over-dry: An oil painting technique that involves layering paint over an already dried layer, resulting in no intermixing of paint or disruption to the lower paint strokes., there are some instances of wet-over-wetwet-over-wet: An oil painting technique which involves drawing a stroke of one color across the wet paint of another color. brushwork with likely accidental blending (Fig. 14).

Fig. 13. Photomicrograph of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing an area that Signac scraped flat before adding more brushstrokes

fullscreen Fig. 13. Photomicrograph of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing an area that Signac scraped flat before adding more brushstrokes

Fig. 14. Photomicrograph of a window in the château showing wet-over-wet brushwork and likely accidental blending of the blue and yellow paint, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886)

fullscreen Fig. 14. Photomicrograph of a window in the château showing wet-over-wet brushwork and likely accidental blending of the blue and yellow paint, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886)

Signac’s divided brushwork varied in both size and shape. For example, the central house’s roofline consists of regimented dashed marks in dark blue, while the leaves of the trees in front of the house are groupings of green dabs (Fig. 15). Here, too, are signs of Signac’s earlier brushwork. There are long, undivided turquoise lines along the upper roofline and curve of the dormer window. Large forms were established using broad strokes, and gradation in tone was added with divided brushwork. Signac applied this technique to the long violet roof on the right and throughout the foliage on the cliffs, adding a multitude of dabs in similar, related tones.

Fig. 15. Detail of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing the variety in Signac’s mark-making. Compare the blue dashed marks with the organic green dabs of the tree.

fullscreen Fig. 15. Detail of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing the variety in Signac’s mark-making. Compare the blue dashed marks with the organic green dabs of the tree.

In the final stages of painting, Signac added small strokes of contrasting color within forms, especially to develop areas of light and shadow. For example, the bluish violet roof of the central house has dabs of warm orange and yellow on the side facing the sunlight; its chimney has gradations of red and coral, with dabs of blue in the shadows (Fig. 16). On a broader scale, these contrasting interactions can be found in the varied green foliage against the red-violet and red-orange of the buildings, as well as the yellows of the château and the blues of the sky.

Fig. 16. Photomicrograph of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing the contrast and gradation Signac achieved with divided brushstrokes in the chimney of the central house

fullscreen Fig. 16. Photomicrograph of The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886), showing the contrast and gradation Signac achieved with divided brushstrokes in the chimney of the central house

Unlike the rest of the composition, the sky is more densely painted with less visible canvas, possibly to obscure the warm tonality of the unprimed canvas. In the radiograph (Fig. 10), there are long diagonal brushstrokes, particularly noticeable to the left of the château. Bright blues in varying hues and tints were added with bold balayé strokes,²⁵Homer describes balayé strokes as “swept over or crisscrossed,” and it is a term used often by Seurat. See Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting, 60. with small punches of whitish yellow to intensify the shimmering of a cloudless summer day. With a mixture of deep red-violet and white, the painting was signed “P. Signac” in the lower right corner.

The painting is in good condition. Small splits along the foldover edgefoldover edge: The point at which the canvas begins to wrap around the stretcher, at the junction between the picture plane and tacking margin. See also turnover edge. and losses at the corners were stabilized by the edge lining, and there is some darkening of the tacking margins from the wax-resin used in this treatment. In the lower right corner, there is a slight convex bulge. There is a network of fine age cracksage cracks: The formation of cracks that occur due to a loss of elasticity in the paint film and priming as these materials age, combined with responses to environmental changes (i.e. expansion and contraction of the support)., especially through thicker passages of paint, but this has no visual impact. Strokes of certain green pigments in the foreground foliage exhibit a whitish, hazy appearance (Fig. 17), and although the cause is unknown, this haze could result from a partially removed surface coating or damage to the paint layer from a harsh cleaning.

Fig. 17. Photomicrograph of a green brushstroke with white hazy appearance, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886). Note also the small, shiny droplets of varnish covering the painting’s surface.

fullscreen Fig. 17. Photomicrograph of a green brushstroke with white hazy appearance, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely (1886). Note also the small, shiny droplets of varnish covering the painting’s surface.

The spray application of varnish, applied in 1975,²⁶Solvent testing determined that the varnish is a synthetic resin. See Mary Schafer, technical examination, November 7, 2011, NAMA conservation file, F78-13. is quite fine and does not create a continuous coat; in some places it is somewhat reticulated. The fineness of the application limited the amount of saturation into the canvas, minimizing the darkening of the unprimed canvas. The varnish was likely applied to increase the saturation of the paint, perhaps in relation to the haziness mentioned above. There is minor retouchingretouching: Paint application by a conservator or restorer to cover losses and unify the original composition. Retouching is an aspect of conservation treatment that is aesthetic in nature and that differs from more limited procedures undertaken solely to stabilize original material. Sometimes referred to as inpainting or retouch. along the upper left and upper right edges as well as a few small spots in the upper right sky.

Notes

1. Many Neo-Impressionists had preferred terms for the movement: Seurat used “chromo-luminarism;” Pissarro called it “scientific impressionism;” and art critic Félix Fénéon coined the term “Neo-Impressionism” in 1886. Signac often referred to “Divisionism” and the divided brushstroke, though the term was primarily used in Italy for a specific sub-group of artists. See “Exposition au Musée: Neo-Impressionism from Seurat to Paul Klee,” Musee d’Orsay, accessed November 9, 2025, https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/whats-on/exhibitions/presentation/neo-impressionism-seurat-paul-klee, and Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon, Anne Distel, John Leighton, and Susan Alyson Stein, Signac, 1863–1935, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 18, 107.

2. An 1889 LeFranc et Cie catalog lists no. 15 paysage basse as 65 by 45.9 centimeters, while an 1888 Bourgeois Aîné refers to nearly the same size (65 x 46) as a no. 15 marine. See Anthea Callen, The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 15; and David Bomford, Jo Kirby, John Leighton, and Ashok Roy, Art in the Making: Impressionism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 46.

3. The treatment carried out by conservator Marco Grassi in 1975 was summarized as follows: “Cleaning. Preparation of pure linen canvas support. Preparation of new stretcher with counter-sunk inscriptions, etc., from old stretcher. Mounting on canvas at edges with glue paste, and wax resin. Restretching. Finishing with stripping and sealing. Minor restorations. Protective surfacing with non-wetting resin.” See correspondence from Dr. M. Roy Fisher, Wildenstein & Co., New York, to Professor Harry Bober, Institute of Fine Arts, New York, May 15, 1978, NAMA conservation file, F78-13.

4. Treatment included what appears to be an early type of edge lining. A secondary fabric support spans the reverse of the original canvas; it is adhered only along the tacking margins and just beyond the fold-over edge into the picture plane. For more on this and similar techniques, see Rustin Levenson, “Strip Linings, Loose Linings, and Other Alternatives to Overall Linings,” in Conservation of Easel Paintings, ed. Joyce Hill Stoner and Rebecca Rushfield (London: Routledge, 2012), 408–14.

5. See the accompanying “Related Works” section for a list of the nine other works completed during Signac’s stay in Les Andelys during the summer of 1886: Brigid M. Boyle, “Paul Signac, The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely, 1886,” documentation, https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.728.4033.

6. Canvases with high-resolution digital images available to examine were all found to lack a ground layer.

7. For an example, see The Seine at Courbevoie (1883; Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne).

8. For an example, see Snow, Boulevard de Clichy, Paris (1886; Minneapolis Institute of Arts).

9. See Lefranc et Cie’s 1889 catalogue in Anthea Callen, The Work of Art (London: Reaktion Books, 2015), 88–89.

10. Callen discusses canvas being commercially available in this form in The Art of Impressionism, 68.

11. The same staining with preservation of the canvas weave is also visible over a much broader area in Signac’s The “Ponton de la Félicité” at Asnières (Opus no. 143) (1886; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam).

12. Signac may have used unprimed canvas in pursuit of a more matte surface, with the absorbency of the canvas pulling oil from the paint and leaving it drier and chalkier. See Callen, The Art of Impressionism, 67–68.

13. By the time he painted Portrieux, The Bathing Cabins, Opus 185 (Beach of the Countess) (1888; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City), Signac had already returned to primed canvas supports. See Susan Pavlik Enterline, “Paul Signac, Portrieux, The Bathing Cabins, Opus 185 (Beach of the Countess), 1888,” technical entry, in this catalogue, https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.730.2088.

14. Paul Signac, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme (Paris: Editions de La Revue Blanche, 1899), trans. in Floyd Ratliff, Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism (New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1992), 218.

15. Digital radiograph composite, nos. 607.1-607.4, October 1, 2025, NAMA conservation file, F78-13. The digital radiograph was captured under the following conditions: 40 kV, 1 mA, and 10 seconds.

16. Signac provides an in-depth explanation of the methods and motivations of Neo-Impressionism in his 1899 book, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme.

17. Vert emeraude (Signac’s original words) was employed to designate viridian, a hydrated chromium (II) oxide pigment. The false cognate emerald green is a copper acetoarsenite-based pigment, and the similarity of the names led to confusion and conflation of what was sold. See Bomford et al., Art in the Making, 58–62. Localized XRF elemental mapping (MA-XRF) for a small part of the foliage area was carried out to explore concerns over possible emerald green deterioration voiced by Forrest R. Bailey, NAMA conservator, in a letter to Ralph T. Coe, director, April 25, 1978, NAMA conservation file, F78-13. Nearly identical distributions of copper and arsenic in elemental maps obtained by MA-XRF support the conclusion that these two elements are exclusively present in the form of emerald green. While a high potential for adverse pigment interaction exists between copper from emerald green and sulfide from cadmium yellow, no instances of darkening were noted. The distribution of chromium indicates that a group of greens and yellow-greens, complementary to those containing copper and arsenic, rely on chromium. Corresponding distributions of several other elements from chrome yellows of the time demonstrate that chrome yellows are present, probably in more than one type. Whether viridian (which would lack these other elements) is present in mixture cannot be determined from elemental information alone. The role of blue pigments used to produce green in mixture with any of the chrome yellows cannot be adequately addressed by MA-XRF. Therefore, the presence of viridian cannot be confirmed from the existing tests, due to the widespread occurrence of chrome yellow. See John Twilley, “XRF Elemental Mapping Detail from Signac’s Chateau Gaillard, F78-13,” February 22, 2026, NAMA conservation file, F78-13.

18. Callen describes the two composed (or mixed) greens as light and dark chrome green but does not share the source for this identification. See Anthea Callen, Techniques of the Impressionists (London: Greenwich Editions, 2004), 134. Chrome green is described as a mixture of chrome yellow and Prussian blue by Hermann Kühn and Mary Curran in “Chrome Yellow and Other Chromate Pigments” in Artists’ Pigments: A Handbook of their History and Characteristics, vol. 1, ed. Robert L. Feller (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, reprinted 2012), 189. The distribution of chromium indicates that many of the greens and yellow-greens rely on chromium, which could support Callen’s description of Signac’s composed greens if additional testing were to confirm the presence of Prussian blue. See Twilley, “XRF Elemental Mapping Detail from Signac’s Chateau Gaillard, F78-13.”

19. The list of colors on Signac’s palette comes from a letter in the Amédée Ozenfant Collection, Cannes, and is reproduced in William Innes Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1985), 151: les cadmiums / vermilion / les laques garance / violet de cobalt / Bleu outremer / Bleu cobalt / '' coerulean / vert Emeraude / vert composé no 1 / '' '' no. 2. / cadmium pale. All translations are by Susan Pavlik Enterline unless otherwise noted.

20. Signac, D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme, trans. in Ratliff, Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism, 248.

21. While Signac wrote about using “pure color” only, this almost never referred to use of a pure pigment without mixture. He describes some of his greens as composed (or mixed), and artists often employed complicated blends of pigments to achieve what they perceived to be a “pure color.” In addition, commercially made paints by this time were often complicated mixtures, sometimes bearing the names of colors they invoked rather than pigments they contained. See correspondence from John Twilley to Susan Pavlik Enterline, February 26, 2026. See also Aurore Malmert, Oulfa Belhadj, Christine Andraud, and Emeline Pouyet, “Unveiling the Materiality of 19th Century’s Color Spaces,” in Color Research and Application 50, no. 5 (September/October 2025): 1–12.

22. Floyd Ratliff defines the difference in Paul Signac and Color in Neo-Impressionism, 35–36. His book also provides an in-depth description of the color theories understood and misunderstood by Signac and the other Neo-Impressionists.

23. John Leighton notes the same progression in The Town Beach, Collioure (1887; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) in “Out of Seurat’s Shadow: Signac, 1863–1935,” in Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac: 1863–1935, 11.

24. Signac also scraped down intermediate paint layers in The Dining Room, Opus 152 (1886–87; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo). See Leighton, “Out of Seurat’s Shadow: Signac, 1863–1935,” in Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac: 1863–1935, 9.

25. Homer describes balayé strokes as “swept over or crisscrossed,” and it is a term used often by Seurat. See Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting, 60.

26. Solvent testing determined that the varnish is a synthetic resin. See Mary Schafer, technical examination, November 7, 2011, NAMA conservation file, F78-13.

provenance

provenance

Paul Signac (1863–1935), Paris, 1886–1920s;

Purchased from Signac by Galerie M. Goldschmidt, Frankfurt, 1920s [1];

Räthe Richter, Berlin;

With Moderne Galerie Thannhauser, Munich, stock no. 6920 [2];

Purchased from Moderne Galerie Thannhauser by Leopold Samuel (1891–1970) and Karen Eva (neé Rosin, 1905–2000) Gutmann, Berlin and New York, ca. 1927–October 6, 1970 [3];

Inherited by Karen Eva Gutmann, New York, 1970–May 23, 1978 [4];

Purchased from Gutmann, through Zargar, Inc., New York, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1978 [5].

Notes

[1] During Signac’s lifetime, he created three chronological lists of his paintings: the cahier d’opus (compiled 1887–1902); the cahier manuscript (compiled 1902–1909); and the pré-catalogue (compiled 1929–1932). The first two inventories contain no provenance information for the Nelson-Atkins painting, but the pré-catalogue lists two owners, “Goldschmidt” and “Räthe Richter Berlin,” in that order. See Archives Paul Signac, Paris.

Françoise Cachin, in her catalogue raisonné of the artist, identified Goldschmidt as Galerie M. Goldschmidt, Frankfurt, a gallery with which Signac entered into contract in 1920. The gallery purchased roughly two dozen works directly from Signac during the 1920s. See Françoise Cachin, Signac: Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2000), no. 120, p. 174; email from Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon, independent art historian, to Brigid M. Boyle, NAMA, September 13, 2022, NAMA curatorial files; and email from Charlotte Hellman, great-granddaughter of Signac, to Brigid M. Boyle, NAMA, October 11, 2022, NAMA curatorial files.

The archives of Galerie M. Goldschmidt are presumed lost. A few years after the passing of the gallery’s founder, Marcel Goldschmidt (né Mayer Goldschmidt, 1860–1928), his wife and children scattered to other countries to escape Nazi persecution. Goldschmidt’s living relatives are unsure what became of his business records. See emails from Jennifer Jacobson, great-great-granddaughter of Goldschmidt, to Brigid M. Boyle, NAMA, September 12, 2022 and October 6, 2022, NAMA curatorial files; and email from Brigid M. Boyle, NAMA, to Naomi Goodman, great-granddaughter of Goldschmidt, October 10, 2022, NAMA curatorial files.

[2] A partial label on the painting’s verso was confirmed to be a Moderne Galerie Thannhauser label by Brigitte Jacobs van Renswou, Zentralarchiv des internationalen kunsthandels E.V., in an email to MacKenzie Mallon, NAMA, September 21, 2015, NAMA curatorial files.

[3] See letter from Dara Zargar, agent for Karen Gutmann, to Ralph T. Coe, NAMA, March 29, 1978, NAMA curatorial files, which states that “it was bought from the Galerie Thannhauser in Munich.” This chain of ownership is further corroborated by a typed addendum to the Nelson-Atkins accessioning worksheet, which indicates that Justin K. Thannhauser sold the painting to Karen Gutmann “per tel. call to Gutmann Frames, NY, 2/17/87.” No further notes concerning this phone call have been found.

According to Françoise Cachin’s handwritten notes in her research dossier on The Château Gaillard (compiled as she prepared the Signac catalogue raisonné), the painting belonged to the Gutmanns “depuis 1927” (since 1927). See Archives Paul Signac, Paris. The couple may have purchased the work to celebrate their recent nuptials since they were married on January 8, 1927.

The Gutmanns emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1935 to escape Nazi persecution. They returned to Europe one more time in 1937, and then moved to New York permanently that same year, bringing their art collection with them. The Signac painting remained in their joint possession until Leopold’s death in 1970, after which Karen inherited it. See letter from Leopold S. Gutmann to Françoise Cachin, September 24, 1969, Archives Paul Signac, Paris; and emails from Mark Jacob Sussman, grandson of the Gutmanns, to Brigid M. Boyle, NAMA, October 7 and 12, 2022, NAMA curatorial files.

[4] Gutmann consigned The Château Gaillard to Wildenstein and Co., New York, from February 1975 to January 1977. During this period, Wildenstein included the painting in two exhibitions, Nature as Scene: French Landscape Painting from Poussin to Bonnard (October 29–December 6, 1975) and Scenes of France: 19th and 20th Century Paintings and Drawings from the Gallery’s Collection (September 7–October 2, 1976). See letter from Ay-Whang Hsia, Wildenstein and Co., to Eliot Rowlands, NAMA, February 23, 1987, NAMA curatorial files.

[5] Zargar, Inc., was owned by Dara Zargar (b. 1941), an Iranian art agent with residences in Manhattan and Miami.

related

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, Lucas Island, 1886, oil on canvas, 26 x 17 3/8 in. (66 x 44.1 cm), Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, MN, on loan from Mary Burrichter and Robert Kierlin.

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, Setting Sun, 1886, oil on canvas, 12 15/16 x 18 1/8 in. (32.8 x 46.1 cm), whereabouts unknown, illustrated in Art moderne (Paris: Christie’s, October 18, 2019), 145.

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, Port Morin, 1886, 13 x 18 1/8 in. (33 x 46 cm), whereabouts unknown, illustrated in Françoise Cachin, Signac: Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2000), no. 122, p. 175.

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, The Baths, 1886, 13 x 18 1/8 in. (33 x 46 cm), whereabouts unknown, illustrated in Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, December 2, 1975), unpaginated.

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, The Washerwomen, 1886, oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 36 1/4 in. (60 x 92 cm), whereabouts unknown, illustrated in Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale (London: Sotheby’s, June 20, 2005), 15.

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, Côte d’Aval, 1886, oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 36 1/4 in. (60 x 92 cm), Art Institute of Chicago, 1993.208.

Paul Signac, The Seine at Les Andelys, 1886, oil on canvas, 18 x 25 1/2 in. (45.7 x 64.8 cm), Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, M.1968.27.P.

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, The Bridge, 1886, oil on canvas, 13 x 18 1/8 in. (33 x 46 cm), Ise Cultural Foundation, Tokyo.

Paul Signac, Les Andelys, The Riverbank, 1886, oil on canvas, 25 11/16 x 32 1/16 in. (65.3 x 81.5 cm), Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 1996 6.

Deuxième exposition de la Société des Artistes indépendants, Bâtiment B, rue des Tuileries, Paris, August 21–September 21, 1886, no. 367, as Le château Gaillard, vu de ma fenêtre.—Petit-Andely.—Juin-juillet 1886.

Nature as Scene: French Landscape Painting from Poussin to Bonnard, Wildenstein, New York, October 29–December 6, 1975, no. 60, as Petit-Andely: Château Gaillard, Seen from the Artist’s Window.

Scenes of France: 19th and 20th Century Paintings and Drawings from the Gallery’s Collection, Wildenstein, New York, September 7–October 2, 1976, no cat.

New Acquisitions, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 28–August 19, 1979, no cat.

A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 14–December 6, 1987, no. 44, as Le Château Gaillard, Les Andelys.

Impressionism: Selections from Five American Museums, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, November 4–December 31, 1989; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, January 27–March 25, 1990; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 21–June 17, 1990; The Saint Louis Art Museum, July 14–September 9, 1990; The Toledo Museum of Art, September 30–November 25, 1990, no. 79, as Château Gaillard, Seen from the Artist’s Window, Petit Andely.

Seurat and the Making of “La Grande Jatte”, The Art Institute of Chicago, June 16–September 19, 2004, no. 115, as Les Andelys, Château Gaillard.

references

Société des Artistes indépendants: Peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, dessinateurs et architectes; Catalogue des œuvres exposées, exh. cat. (Paris: Imprimerie A. Lahure, 1886), 22 [repr., in Theodore Reff, ed., Modern Art in Paris: Two-Hundred Catalogues of the Major Exhibitions Reproduced in Facsimile in Forty-Seven Volumes, vol. 9, Salons of the “Indépendants” 1884–1891 (New York: Garland, 1981), unpaginated], as Le château Gaillard, vu de ma fenêtre.—Petit-Andely.—Juin-juillet 1886.

Gustave Geffroy, “Chronique: Artistes indépendants,” La Justice, no. 2411 (August 21, 1886): 2.

Charles Vignier, “L’Exposition des Indépendants,” La Vie Moderne et Tout Paris, no. 38 (September 18, 1886): 604, as Le château Gaillard.

Felix Fénéon, “Correspondance particulière de ‘L’Art moderne:’ L’Impressionnisme aux Tuileries,” L’Art moderne 6, no. 38 (September 19, 1886): 301, as le Château-Gaillard de ma fenêtre.

Robert Bernier, “Salon de la Société des Indépendants: 2me Exposition,” La Revue moderne littéraire, politique et artistique 2, no. 33 (September 20, 1886): 617, as Château Gaillard vu de ma fenêtre au Petit Andely.

Felix Fénéon, Les Impressionnistes en 1886 (Paris: Publications de “La vogue,” 1886), 40.

Paul Signac, “Cahier d’opus,” 1887–1902, Archives Signac, Paris, as Opus no. 134, Château Gaillard de ma fenêtre.

Paul Signac, “Cahier manuscrit,” 1902–1909, Archives Signac, Paris, as Les Andelys. Château Gaillard.

Gaston Lévy and Paul Signac, “Pré-catalogue,” 1929–1932, Archives Signac, Paris, p. 131, (repro.), as Les Andelys. Château Gaillard.

Marie-Thérèse Lemoyne de Forges, Signac, exh. cat. (Paris: Ministère d’état, Affaires culturelles, 1963), 15.

Felix Fénéon, Au-delà de l’impressionnisme, ed. Françoise Cachin (Paris: Hermann, 1966), 71, 78, as Le Château-Gaillard de ma fenêtre.

Félix Fénéon, Œuvres plus que complètes, ed. Joan U. Halperin (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1970), 1:43, 56, as le Château-Gaillard de ma fenêtre.

Françoise Cachin, Paul Signac, trans. Michael Bullock (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1971), 26.

Nature as Scene: French Landscape Painting from Poussin to Bonnard, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein, 1975), unpaginated, as Petit-Andely: Château Gaillard, Seen from the Artist’s Window.

Donald Hoffmann, “New Artworks Go On Exhibit at Nelson,” Kansas City Times 110, no. 225 (May 27, 1978): 11C, as Chateau [sic] Gaillard.

“Gallery Attraction,” Kansas City Star 98, no. 238 (June 4, 1978): 1F, (repro.), as Chateau [sic] Gaillard.

“Principales acquisitions des musées en 1978,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 93, no. 1323 (April 1979): 49, (repro.), as Château-Gaillard.

Donald Hoffmann, “Gallery Visitors, Revenues Down,” Kansas City Star 99, no. 270 (July 29, 1979): 28A.

Donald Hoffmann, “Intensity and nuance: the Nelson’s new pastels,” Kansas City Star 100, no. 77 (December 16, 1979): 27.

Sophie Monneret, L’impressionnisme et son époque: Dictionnaire international illustré (Paris: Editions Denoël, 1979–1980), 2:255, 3:245.

Donald Hoffmann, “The fine art of contributing to the gallery,” Kansas City Star 101, no. 225 (June 7, 1981): 1F.

Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 108–09, (repro.), as Le Château Gaillard, Les Andelys.

Marc S. Gerstein, Impressionism: Selections from Five American Museums, exh. cat. (New York: Hudson Hills, 1989), 12, 15, 21, 90, 180–81, (repro.), as Château Gaillard, Seen from the Artist’s Window, Petit Andely.

David Lewis, “Museum Impressions,” Carnegie Magazine 59, no. 12 (November–December 1989): 46.

Alice Thorson, “The Nelson Celebrates its 60th,” Kansas City Star 113, no. 304 (July 18, 1993): J-5.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1933–1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 99, as Château Gaillard, Seen from the Artist’s Window, Petit Andely.

Importants tableaux et sculptures modernes: Succession Palazzolo, succession Michel Guy, et à divers amateurs (Paris: Hotel Drouot, June 21, 1993), unpaginated.

Roger B. Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 210, (repro.), as Château Gaillard, Seen from the Artist’s Window, Petit Andely.

Gloria Groom, “Acquisitions in Focus: The Art Institute of Chicago,” Apollo 142, no. 406 (December 1995): 59, 61n4.

Françoise Cachin, Signac: Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2000), no. 120, pp. 174, 352, (repro.), as Les Andelys. Château-Gaillard.

Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon et al., Signac: 1863–1935, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 107, 121, 301.

Anne Distel, Signac: Au temps d’harmonie, exh. cat. (Paris: Gallimard / Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001), 33.

Françoise Cachin and Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon, P. Signac, exh. cat. (Paris: A.D.A.G.P., 2003), 32, 178, 232, 261.

Robert L. Herbert, Seurat and the Making of “La Grande Jatte”, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2004), 134, 138–39, 277, 281, 287, (repro.), as Les Andelys, Château Gaillard.

Robyn Roslak, “Symphonic Seas, Oceans of Liberty: Paul Signac’s La Mer: Les Barques (Concarneau),” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 4, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 39n11, https://19thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/component/content/article/64-spring05article/302-symphonic-seas-oceans-of-liberty-paul-signacs-la-mer-les-barques-concarneau.

Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Villa Grisebach Auktionen, November 26, 2005), unpaginated.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 122–23, (repro.), as Les Andelys, Château Gaillard.

Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, The Age of Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2008), 115 [repr., Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, The Age of French Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2010), 129].

Guy Cogeval et al., Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionism from the Musée d’Orsay, exh. cat. (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2009), 108.

Marina Ferretti Bocquillon, ed., Impressionism on the Seine (Giverny, France: Musée des impressionnismes, 2010), 57–58, 65n14, as The Château-Gaillard from my window and Les Andelys, Château-Gaillard, June-July.

Moderne und Zeitgennössische Kunst: Moderne Graphik (Zurich: Koller Zürich, December 7, 2012), 34, 36, (repro.), as Les Andelys, Château Gaillard.

Annette Blaugrund, ed., Charting New Waters: Redefining Marine Painting; Masterworks from the Burrichter/Kierlin Collection, exh. cat. (Winona, MN: Minnesota Marine Art Museum, 2013), 86, 86n3, as Les Andelys, Château Gaillard.

Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 99, (repro.), as The Château Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely.

Art moderne (Paris: Christie’s, October 18, 2019), 146.

European Art and Old Masters (Philadelphia: Freeman’s, February 18, 2020), unpaginated.

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A History (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2020), 264, as Chateau [sic] Gaillard, View from My Window, Petit Andely.