Banks of the Seine with the Pont de Clichy

By the summer of 1887 van Gogh had been in Paris for more than a year, living with his brother Theo on the rue Lepic, and his walking range had settled on the north-western edge of the city. Asnieres and Clichy were where the Seine ran past the factories and where Parisians came out on Sundays to row and eat by the water. He went out there with Paul Signac, ten years younger and already painting in separate touches of unmixed colour, and the handling here is van Gogh testing that method his own way. He worked fast and small, on cardboard rather than canvas, about 30 by 39 centimetres. Unlike most of the Paris pictures it never reached a museum, and has stayed in private collections ever since.