Along the Seine

In the summer of 1887 Van Gogh worked out along the Seine downstream of Paris, on banks that were turning half into weekend leisure and half into factory ground. He found his spot, drew the whole river landscape onto the canvas in pencil, and then began to paint. He never covered all of it up. Along the horizon the pencil line is still visible where no paint went over it, and areas of the canvas were left as they were, perhaps to be finished later in the studio. The picture came back to the flat on Montmartre between the middle of May and the end of July 1887, and it was still in that state when he left Paris the following February.