The Seine at Courbevoie

In 1883 Seurat began carrying small wooden boards out to the suburbs northwest of Paris. He called them croquetons, little sketches, and made around 70 of them, painted in the hand in the open air. For this one he stood on the island of La Grande Jatte, looking southwest across the water to Courbevoie, a plain river suburb with a bridge behind it and a single figure out in a boat. The board measures 15.5 by 24.5 centimetres, small enough to hold in one palm. Much of its warm orange-brown wood is left bare and shows through the loose blue strokes of the water and the soft pinks of the evening light. The Van Gogh Museum bought the panel in 1998. Vincent had painted this same stretch of the Seine in 1887, three years after Seurat worked here.