View of the Seine

At the beginning of Seurat’s career he made about seventy oil studies on small wood panels, which he called croquetons (little sketches). These durable boards were easily transported and held in the hand, making them ideal for painting outdoors. This is among the earliest of the studies that Seurat made along the Seine River on the outskirts of Paris, where fishermen, such as the duo in the foreground, cast their lines amid commercial barges and industrial smokestacks. Seurat’s first major painting, Bathers at Asnières (1884; National Gallery, London) is set along a similar stretch of the river.