Oil Sketch for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884"

Description

This small oil on thin wood panel is one of over 20 painted studies Georges Seurat made for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 . Although at first glance its composition seems similar to the finished canvas, its 20 or more figures have little to do with the final version. The trio at right with an elderly seated figure, for example, was completely rethought in the completed work, where they are replaced by a man in a top hat and a woman walking a monkey on a leash. This ironic combination of grand solemnity and wry humor is totally absent from the sketch’s awkwardly positioned figures.

Provenance

The artist (died 1891), Paris [panneau no. 87, posthumous inventory, dated May 3, 1891, reproduced in de Hauke 1961, v.1, 80]. Possibly by descent to the artist’s mother, Ernestine Faivre Seurat (died 1899). Maximilien Luce (died 1941), Paris [Herbert 1992, 129]; by descent to his son, Frédéric Luce, Paris, 1941 [this and the following according to correspondence from Claudine Godts, Wildenstein & Co. Inc., Oct. 14, 2021; copy in curatorial object file]; sold to Wildenstein and Co., Paris, May 1955 ; transferred to Wildenstein and Co., New York, Oct. 1955; sold to Leigh B. Block (died 1987) and Mary Lasker Block (died 1981), Chicago, Nov. 1955 [according to the above and correspondence from Susan Stein, Aug. 11, 2004; copy in curatorial object file]; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1981.