The Beach at Saint-Jacut (1909): Art, History and Details

The Beach at Saint-Jacut (1909) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868–1940).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Édouard Vuillard spent the summer of 1909 in the French coastal town of Saint-Jacut de la Mer, known for its beaches and bathing. Sharing housing with a group of artist friends, Vuillard sketched and painted avidly, depicting the seascape in several works including this drawing. Here, the artist emphasized the remoteness of the beach, depicting a woman sitting alone, wearing a gray dress that matches the tone of the infinitely expanding sky beyond her.

Object facts

• Title: The Beach at Saint-Jacut
• Date: 1909
• Creator attribution: Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868–1940)
• Culture: France, 20th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: distemper on paper, laid down on canvas
• Dimensions: Image and Sheet: 57.8 x 43.2 cm (22 3/4 x 17 in.); Mounted: 58.7 x 44.3 cm (23 1/8 x 17 7/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2020.143

A detail from the museum

Vuillard created this drawing using distemper, a technique that involves mixing pigment and glue, which he favored at this time for the planes of matte color that resulted.

Collection credit

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• Chastel, André. Vuillard, 1868–1940. Paris: Floury, 1946.
• Ventes aux enchères publiques. Geneva: Hôtel Président, 1989.
• Salomon, Antoine and Guy Cogeval. Vuillard: The Inexhaustible Glance, Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels. Paris: Wildenstein, 2003.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.