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View of a lush green landscape with trees along a river on a sunny day.　

A young man or boy in a brown coat and hat sits in the grass in center facing the river that winds from the left. Further down the river a few undefined people hang out in leisurely poses, one under a parasol. Young trees with thin trunks dot the landscape and form an ordered cluster on the right. Everything is painted in short loose brush strokes. Vibrant greens are the predominant color of the grass and tree canopies. A large dark green shadow is painted in the foreground, with the artist’s signature in the lower right in dark red.

Gallery Text

Seurat made roughly thirty oil studies in preparation for his enormous masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which he exhibited at the final impressionist exhibition in 1886. It depicts an array of bourgeois figures lounging on La Grande Jatte (The Big Bowl), an island in the Seine located just outside Paris. Studies such as this one focus on a select group of figures, and though they often depart from the finished composition, this scene’s trees, riverbed, and white umbrella do appear in the middle ground of the final painting. Seurat’s technique, in which he allowed the dark wood panel to show through in his oil studies, rather than covering it with a light white ground, distinguished his work from that of the impressionists, leading the critic Félix Fénéon to characterize his approach as “neoimpressionism.”

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1951.62
People
Georges Pierre Seurat, French (Paris 1859 - 1891 Paris)
Title
Seated Figures, Study for "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1884-1885
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/229049

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1220, European Art, 19th–20th century, Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
16.2 x 25.5 cm (6 3/8 x 10 1/16 in.)
framed: 38.1 x 47.9 x 8 cm (15 x 18 7/8 x 3 1/8 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r.: Seurat
  • inscription: Inscribed in red paint in a manner referred to as "cachet Moline" after the dealer responsible for the addition.
  • inscription: On cradle, in black ink: 11489

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Georges Lecomte, Paris. [Reid Gallery, Glasgow], sold ; to [Alex Reid and Lefèvre,Ltd., London], sold; to D. W. T. Cargill, Lanark, Scotland, (1927-1932). [Bignou Gallery, New York]. Stanley L. Barbee, Beverly Hills, CA, sold; [at his sale, Parke-Bernet, NY, April 20, 1944, no. 17]; to Maurice Wertheim, New York, 1944 - 1951), bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1951.

Notes:
Reid Gallery and Lefèvre partnered in the 1920s. Alex Reid and Lefèvre,Ltd., was also known as The Lefevre Gallery.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
Accession Year
1951
Object Number
1951.62
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Catalogue de l'exposition de Georges Seurat (1859-1891), exh. cat., Galerie Bernheim Jeune (Paris, France, 1908), no. 45
  • A Century of French Painting, exh. cat., Lefevre Galleries (Glasgow, Scotland, 1927), no. 39
  • A Century of French Painting, exh. cat., McLellan Gallery (Glasgow, Scotland, 1927), no. 39
  • Christian Zervos, "Un Dimanche à la Grande Jatte et la technique de Seurat", Cahiers d'Art (1928), vol. III, no. 9, p. 366
  • Claire Batigne, Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts (London, 1932), no. 556
  • Daniel Catton Rich, Seurat and the Evolution of "La Grande Jatte", University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL, 1935), repr. pl. xxviii
  • French Painting since 1870, lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1946), p. 24, repr. p. 25
  • Six Masters of Post-Impressionism, exh. cat., Wildenstein & Company (New York, NY, 1948), no. 48
  • La Peinture Française Depuis 1870: Collection Maurice Wertheim, exh. cat., Tom Taylor (Québec, Canada, 1949), no. 12, pp. 33-34
  • A Collector's Exhibition: Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Collections of Members of the Advisory Committee of the Institute of Fine Arts., exh. cat., Knoedler & Co. Inc. (New York, NY, 1950), foreword, no. 11
  • Henri Dorra and John Rewald, Seurat, Les Beaux-Arts (Paris, France, 1959), repr. no. 122, p. 132
  • Henri Dorra and John Rewald, Seurat: L'oeuvre peint, biographie et catalogue critique (Paris, France, 1959), no. 122
  • The Maurice Wertheim Catalogue: Modern French Art-- Monet to Picasso, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC, 1960), p. 50, repr. p. 51
  • César M. de Hauke, Seurat et son Oeuvre, Grund (Paris, France, 1961), p. 305, no. 123
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 1962), p. 48, pl. 19
  • William Innes Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA, 1964), pp. 120-122
  • John Russell, Seurat, Thames & Hudson (London, England, 1965), pl. 144, p. 157
  • Fiorella Minervino and André Chastel, L'Opera Completa di Seurat (Milan, Italy, 1972), no. 131
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Maine State Museum (Augusta, ME, 1972), no. 35
  • Paris-New York: A Continuing Romance, exh. cat., Wildenstein Galleries (New York, NY, 1977), no. 79
  • Vivien Raynor, "Art: Impressionist Show at the I.B.M. Gallery" [review], The New York Times (New York, NY, April 26, 1985), p. C24
  • John O'Brian, Degas to Matisse: the Maurice Wertheim Collection, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and Fogg Art Museum (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, 1988), no. 13, pp. 72-74, repr. p. 73
  • Hollis Clayson, "The Family and the Father: The Grande Jatte and its Absences", Museum Studies, The Art Institute of Chicago (1989), vol. XIV, no. 2, repr. in b/w fig. 5. p. 159; text p. 158
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 86, color plate; pp. 129, 358, repr. b/w cat. no. 394
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1990), repr. in color no. 20, p. 71
  • Michael F. Zimmermann, Seurat and the Art Theory of his Time, Fonds Mercator (Antwerp, 1991), repr. in color no. 333, p. 179
  • Robert L. Herbert, Seurat and the Making of "La Grande Jatte", exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago/University of California Press (Chicago, 2004), no. 40, p. 70, repr. in color
  • Elizabeth M. Rudy, "Researching the Wertheim Collection at the Harvard Art Museums", Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals (Summer 2014), Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 301-6

Exhibition History

  • Exposition Georges Seurat, 1859-1891, Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris, 12/14/1908 - 01/09/1909
  • A Century of French Painting, McLellan Gallery, Glasgow, 01/01/1927 - 12/31/1927
  • Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 01/01/1932 - 03/05/1932
  • French Painting since 1870 lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/01/1946 - 09/07/1946; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 07/01/1953 - 09/13/1953
  • Six Masters of Post-Impressionism, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 04/08/1948 - 05/08/1948
  • La Peinture Française depuis 1870, Musée de la Province de Quebec, 07/12/1949 - 08/07/1949
  • A Collector's Exhibition, M. Knoedler & Co., Newport, 02/06/1950 - 02/25/1950
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 07/01/1952 - 09/14/1952
  • French Paintings Since 1870 from the Maurice Wertheim Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 06/01/1953 - 09/30/1953
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 06/15/1957 - 09/15/1957
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 06/10/1958 - 08/31/1958
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Modern French Art--Monet to Picasso, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 06/17/1960 - 09/04/1960
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 06/13/1962 - 09/02/1962
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 06/20/1963 - 09/01/1963
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, 06/24/1965 - 09/07/1965
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 09/03/1968 - 09/22/1968
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, 06/01/1971 - 09/30/1971
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Maine State Museum, Augusta, 06/01/1972 - 09/01/1972
  • Paris-New York: A Continuing Romance, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 11/03/1977 - 12/17/1977
  • Manet to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, 04/09/1985 - 05/25/1985
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, 03/01/1990 - 04/10/1990; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 04/14/1990 - 05/13/1990
  • Seurat and the Making of "La Grande Jatte", The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 06/16/2004 - 09/19/2004
  • Re-View: S427 Impressionist & Postimpressionist Art, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/02/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • 32Q: 1220 Wertheim, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu