Фабрика в Аньере

Van Gogh spent the summer of 1887 walking out of Paris to Asnières, an hour or so on foot from his brother Theo's flat in Montmartre, and painting what he found there. Along with the boating and the riverside restaurants, what he found was industry. This is a glassworks.

The round shapes stacked along the path are balls of glass waiting to be melted. They were being turned into globes for gas lamps, for the streets and for people's rooms, in the years when Paris was beginning to change over to electric light.

The short bright strokes were new to him as well. He met Paul Signac that spring, and the two of them walked out to Asnières together with their canvases more than once that summer.