Entrance to Honfleur Harbor

Artist Johan Barthold Jongkind (Dutch, 1819-1891)

Place of OriginNetherlands

Date1863

DimensionsH: 13 1/8 in. (33.3 cm); W: 18 1/4 in. (46.3 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1950.71

Not on View

Label TextIn August of 1865 Dutch artist Johan Barthold Jongkind wrote to a friend: “I have left Paris and here I am at Honfleur, the place to which I return as always with renewed pleasure. It is a little seaport where there are always ten or twenty ships of all nations, not counting the merchantmen and fishing boats of the same countries.” Located on the coast of Normandy in northern France, Honfleur Harbor was a favorite spot of Jongkind’s, where he spent the summers of 1862 through 1865 painting and sketching the views. Taking advantage of his summer stays, Jongkind worked en plein air (in the open air) like the Impressionists on whom he was an influence, capturing the atmospheric effects of sky, water, and light that the harbor offered. Painted on a white ground rather than the dark ground usually preferred by French artists at the time, light radiates through Entrance to Honfleur Harbor, while the surface is enlivened by alluring strokes of the paintbrush that mimic the movement of water.Published ReferencesKindlers Malerei Lexikon, Zürich, 1966, vol. 3, repr. (b&w) p. 472.

Lee, Katharine C., "French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 12, no. 3, Autumn 1969, repr. p. 66.

Hefting, Victorine, Jongkind: sa vie, son oeuvre, son époque, Paris, 1975, p. 141, no. 271.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 87, pl. 148.

Exhibition HistoryIowa City, University of Iowa Gallery of Art, Impressionism and its Roots, 1964, no. 19, repr. p. 32.

Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Saint Louis Museum; Toledo Museum of Art, Impressionism: Selections from Five American Museums, 1989-90, no. 41, p. 104, repr. (col.).

The Hague, Gemeentemuseum; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Johann Barthold Jongkind, ein Wegbereiter des Impressionismus, 2003-04, no. 76, p. 123, Abb. 107, (col.) p. 134, cover (det. col.). [German ed.] ; no. 33, p. 123, fig. 107 (col.), p. 134 [French ed.].