Grassy Riverbank

Seurat got back to Paris in November 1880 after a year of military service on the coast at Brest, and spent much of the next two years painting outdoors along the Seine northwest of the city. He called these small studies croquetons, little sketches, and usually made them on wood panels about the size of a cigar box lid, light enough to hold in one hand. This one is on canvas, which is rare in the group, and it catches a grassy bank at the end of the day. Nothing in it is dotted. The method that made his name was still a few years off, and when it arrived the critic Félix Fénéon gave it the label Neo-Impressionism, in 1886. Fénéon was also the first owner of this little canvas, which reached Dallas in 1985 with the collection of Wendy and Emery Reves.