President and Fellows of Harvard College 1 of 10
President and Fellows of Harvard College Gallery Text Seurat made roughly thirty oil studies in preparation for his enormous masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which he exhibited at the final impressionist exhibition in 1886. It depicts an array of bourgeois figures lounging on La Grande Jatte (The Big Bowl), an island in the Seine located just outside Paris. Studies such as this one focus on a 2 of 10
select group of figures, and though they often depart from the finished composition, this scene s trees, riverbed, and white umbrella do appear in the middle ground of the final painting. Seurat s technique, in which he allowed the dark wood panel to show through in his oil studies, rather than covering it with a light white ground, distinguished his work from that of the impressionists, leading the critic Félix Fénéon to characterize his approach as neoimpressionism. Identification and Creation Object Number 1951.62 People Georges Pierre Seurat, French (Paris 1859-1891 Paris) Title Seated Figures, Study for "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" Classification Paintings Work Type painting Date 1884-1885 Culture French 3 of 10
Location Level 1, Room 1220, European Art, 19th 20th century, Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906 View this object's location on our interactive map Physical Descriptions Medium Oil on panel Dimensions 16.2 x 25.5 cm (6 3/8 x 10 1/16 in.) framed: 38.1 x 47.9 x 8 cm (15 x 18 7/8 x 3 1/8 in.) Inscriptions and Marks Signed: l.r.: Seurat inscription: Inscribed in red paint in a manner referred to as "cachet Moline" after the dealer responsible for the addition. inscription: On cradle, in black ink: 11489 Provenance Georges Lecomte, Paris. [Reid Gallery, Glasgow], sold ; to [Alex Reid and Lefèvre,Ltd., London], sold; to D. W. T. Cargill, Lanark, Scotland, (1927-1932). [Bignou Gallery, New York]. Stanley L. Barbee, Beverly Hills, CA, sold; [at his sale, Parke-Bernet, NY, April 20, 1944, no. 17]; to Maurice Wertheim, New York, 1944-1951), bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1951. Notes: Reid Gallery and Lefèvre partnered in the 1920s. Alex Reid and Lefèvre,Ltd., was also known as The Lefevre Gallery. 4 of 10
Acquisition and Rights Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906 Accession Year 1951 Object Number 1951.62 Division European and American Art Contact am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu Publication History Catalogue de l'exposition de Georges Seurat (1859-1891), exh. cat., Galerie Bernheim Jeune (Paris, France, 1908), no. 45 A Century of French Painting, exh. cat., McLellan Gallery (Glasgow, Scotland, 1927), no. 39 A Century of French Painting, exh. cat., Lefevre Galleries (Glasgow, Scotland, 1927), no. 39 Christian Zervos, "Un Dimanche à la Grande Jatte et la technique de Seurat", Cahiers d'art (1928), vol. III, no. 9, p. 366 Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts (London, England, 1932), no. 556 Daniel Catton Rich, Seurat and the Evolution of "La Grande Jatte", University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL, 1935), repr. pl. xxviii French Painting since 1870, lent by Maurice Wertheim, 5 of 10
Class of 1906, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1946), p. 24, repr. p. 25 Six Masters of Post-Impressionism, exh. cat., Wildenstein & Company (New York, NY, 1948), no. 48 La Peinture Française Depuis 1870: Collection Maurice Wertheim, exh. cat., Tom Taylor (Québec, Canada, 1949), no. 12, pp. 33-34 A Collector's Exhibition: Impressionist and Post- Impressionist Masterpieces from the Collections of Members of the Advisory Committee of the Institute of Fine Arts., exh. cat., Knoedler & Co. Inc. (New York, NY, 1950), foreword, no. 11 Henri Dorra and John Rewald, Seurat: L'oeuvre peint, biographie et catalogue critique (Paris, France, 1959), no. 122 Henri Dorra and John Rewald, Seurat, Les Beaux-Arts, Paris (Paris, France, 1959), repr. no. 122, p. 132 The Maurice Wertheim Catalogue: Modern French Art- - Monet to Picasso, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC, 1960), p. 50, repr. p. 51 César M. de Hauke, Seurat et son Oeuvre, Grund (Paris, France, 1961), p. 305, no. 123 The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Modern French Art-- Manet to Picasso, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Houston, TX, 1962), pl. 19, pp. 48-49 William Innes Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA, 1964), pp. 120-122 John Russell, Seurat, Thames & Hudson (London, England, 1965), pl. 144, p. 157 Fiorella Minervino and A. Chastel, L'Opera Completa di Seurat (Milan, Italy, 1972), no. 131 The Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Maine State Museum (Augusta, ME, 1972), no. 35 6 of 10
Paris-New York: A Continuing Romance, exh. cat., Wildenstein Galleries (New York, NY, 1977), no. 79 John O'Brian, Degas to Matisse: the Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc./Fogg Art Museum (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, 1988), no. 13, pp. 72-74, repr. p. 73 Hollis Clayson, "The Family and the Father: The Grande Jatte and its Absences", Museum Studies, The Art Institute of Chicago (1989), vol. XIV, no. 2, repr. in b/w fig. 5. p. 159; text p. 158 The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1990), repr. in color no. 20, p. 71 Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 86, color plate; pp. 129, 358, repr. b/w cat. no. 394 Michael F. Zimmermann, Seurat and the Art Theory of his Time, Fonds Mercator (Antwerp, 1991), repr. in color no. 333, p. 179 Robert L. Herbert, Seurat and the Making of "La Grande Jatte", exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago/University of California Press (Chicago, 2004), no. 40, p. 70, repr. in color Vivien Raynor, "Art: Impressionist Show at the I.B.M. Gallery" [review], The New York Times (New York, NY, April 26, 1985), p. C24 Elizabeth M. Rudy, "Researching the Wertheim Collection at the Harvard Art Museums", Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals 7 of 10
(Summer 2014), Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 301-6 Exhibition History Exposition Georges Seurat, 1859-1891, Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris, 12/14/1908-01/09/1909 A Century of French Painting, McLellan Gallery, Glasgow, 01/01/1927-12/31/1927 Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 01/01/1932-03/05/1932 French Painting since 1870 lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/01/1946-09/07/1946; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 07/01/1953-09/13/1953 Six Masters of Post-Impressionism, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 04/08/1948-05/08/1948 La Peinture Française depuis 1870, Musée de la Province de Quebec, 07/12/1949-08/07/1949 A Collector's Exhibition, M. Knoedler & Co., Newport, 02/06/1950-02/25/1950 The Maurice Wertheim Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 07/01/1952-09/14/1952 French Paintings Since 1870 from the Maurice Wertheim Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 06/01/1953-09/30/1953 The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 06/15/1957-09/15/1957 The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 06/10/1958-08/31/1958 The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Modern French Art-- Monet to Picasso, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 06/17/1960-09/04/1960 The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 06/13/1962-09/02/1962 8 of 10
The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 06/20/1963-09/01/1963 The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, 06/24/1965-09/07/1965 The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Rhode Island School of Design, Museum of Art, Providence, 09/03/1968-09/22/1968 The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, 06/01/1971-09/30/1971 The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Maine State Museum, Augusta, 06/01/1972-09/01/1972 Paris-New York: A Continuing Romance, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 11/03/1977-12/17/1977 Manet to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, 04/09/1985-05/25/1985 The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, 03/01/1990-04/10/1990; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 04/14/1990-05/13/1990 Seurat and the Making of "La Grande Jatte", The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 06/16/2004-09/19/2004 Re-View: S427 Impressionist & Postimpressionist Art, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/02/2008-06/18/2011 32Q: 1220 Wertheim, Harvard Art Museums, 11/01/2014 Subjects and Contexts Collection Highlights Google Art Project 9 of 10
This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu Generated on July 3, 2016 at 03:42pm 10 of 10