The Bridge at Bineau

In the spring of 1884 the official Salon in Paris turned down Georges Seurat's big canvas Bathers at Asnières, and he showed it instead at the first exhibition of the new Independents. By then he was already at work on the next one. For A Sunday on La Grande Jatte he went out again and again to the Seine just west of Paris, painting small oil sketches on the spot. This wooden panel, only 14.5 by 24 centimetres, comes from those outings. It was painted by the Pont de Bineau, the road bridge between Neuilly and Courbevoie near the island of La Grande Jatte. The strokes are quick and crossing, laid down before he settled on the even dots of the finished picture. The surgeon Philip Sandblom and his wife Grace gave it to the Nationalmuseum in 1970, and in 2004 it travelled to Chicago for an exhibition on how La Grande Jatte was made.