Ruinen bei Grandcamp

In the summer of 1885 Seurat left Paris for the Normandy coast and spent it at Grandcamp, his first real stretch of painting the sea. This little panel, barely larger than a hand, is one of the things he brought back, worked up quickly in front of the motif. He was 25, and the following spring he would show the enormous Sunday on La Grande Jatte and give the new dotted technique its public debut. Here the method is still loosening into place, the coast built from small separate touches of colour. The panel carries a quieter later history too. It resurfaced in France after the Second World War among works without clear owners, and the state still holds it while the rightful heirs are sought.