Georges Seurat

Estate of the artist
Ernestine Seurat, Paris
Marie Puybonnieux, Paris
Jacques & Pierre Puybonnieux, Paris (by descent from the above)
Wildenstein & Co., New York
Mrs. Arthur Lehman, New York (aquired by 1959)
Sale: Christie's, New York, October 21, 1980, lot 209
Herbert Black, Montreal
Sale: Christie's, London, November 30, 1987, lot 28
Gallery Art Point, Japan
Private Collection, Japan (acquired circa 2003)
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 2008

Paris, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Seurat et ses Amis, la suite de l'Impressionnisme, 1933-34, no. 165, illustrated in the catalogue
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago & New York, Museum of Modern Art, Seurat, 1958, no. 32

Jacques de Laprade, George Seurat, Paris, 1945, illustrated pl. 2
Henri Dorra & John Rewald, Seurat, L'oeuvre peint, biographie et catalogue critique, Paris, 1959, no. 38, illustrated p. 37
C.M. de Hauke, Seurat et son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1961, no. 11, illustrated p. 6
John Rewald, The History of Impressionism, New York, 1961, illustrated p. 509
Claus Virch, The Adèle and Arthur Lehman Collection, New York, 1965, illustrated p. 76
André Chastel & Fiorella Minervino, Seurat, Milan, 1971, illustated pl. IIIa

This work is in excellent condition. Panel is sound. A bit of minor frame abrasion at extreme edges. Under UV light no inpainting is apparent.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Seurat often depicted scenes of rural life in his early oeuvre. The early 1880s was a time of experimentation that would help define the methods he would employ for the rest of his life, which was cut short less than a decade later. Ouvriers enfonçant des pieux belongs to a series of sixty-five small-scale paintings on panel that Seurat produced around this time. Writing about these works from 1881-83, Alain Madeleine-Perdrillat observed that "[Seurat] worked at painting, proceeding methodically as usual, making what he called 'croquetons,' namely, oil studies painted on wooden panels of identical format (around 16 cm high and 25 cm long)… The execution of these little paintings, which leave the motions of the hand visible, gives them an evident modernity; and it is just this resolute search for an exclusively pictorial truth that accounts for their marvelous freshness (not always to be found in Seurat’s larger formats). These were not studies of specific details made in view of a larger work... Nor were they academic sketches… His croquetons are independent of any more ambitious project. They are works in their own right" (Alain Madeleine-Perdrillat, Seurat, Geneva, 1990, pp. 36-38).

The young artist’s curiosity with painting agrarian subject matter is unique to this time period. It is possible that the subject matter derives from his systematic approach to painting his surroundings, while it also offered a means to learn from the legacies of earlier trends in painting. He often studied the work of realists like Jean-Francois Millet, whose artwork was easily accessible at the time, since Alfred Seniers published a monograph containing Millet reproductions in 1881. During these years, Seurat adopted the subject matter of the realists, but approached it with taschisme-slashes and comma-like strokes, depicting unnamed farm workers in the style of contemporary Impressionist painters. Striking a balance, as Robert L. Herbert writes, “Seurat gave his figures the dignity of their labor, even if he did not individualize them” (Seurat (exhibition catalogue), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1991-92, pp. 119 & 122).

 

Fig. 1 Georges Seurat, Le Faucheur, circa 1881, oil on panel, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York