喬治·秀拉

Emile Seurat (the artist's brother)
Félix Fénéon, Paris
Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin
Thomas Agnew & Company, London
Captain Victor Cazalet, London (before 1943)
Bignou Gallery, New York
Fine Arts Associates, New York
Mrs. William M. Elkins, Philadelphia (acquired from the above on February 28, 1946)
M. Knoelder & Co., Inc., New York (acquired from the above in 1947)
Collection of Mr. Paul Mellon (acquired from the above in 1950)
Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon (Christmas gift from the above, December 1950)

New York, Galerie Joseph Brummer, Georges Seurat, 1924, cat. no. 10
Paris, Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Georges Seurat, 1936, cat. no. 6
London, Wildenstein Gallery, Seurat and his Contemporaries, 1937, cat. no. 38
Palm Beach, Society of the Four Arts, The Post-Impressionists and Their Followers, 1949, cat. no. 17
New York, Knoedler Gallery, Seurat: Paintings and Drawings, 1949, cat. no. 11
Chicago, The Art Institute; New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Seurat, Paintings and Drawings, 1958, cat. no. 27
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, 1941-1966, 1966, cat. no. 138, illustrated

The New York Times, December 31, 1924, illustrated
James Laver, French Painting and the 19th Century, New York, 1937, p. 130, illustrated
Henri Dorra & John Rewald, Seurat, L’oeuvre peint, Biographie et catalogue critique, Paris, 1959, cat. no. 19, p. 18, illustrated (as dating from circa 1882)
Robert L. Herbert, “Seurat in Chicago and New York," The Burlington Magazine, New York, 1958, p. 150, illustrated
César M. de Hauke, Seurat et son oeuvre, Paris, 1961, vol I, cat. no. 62, p. 35, illustrated (catalogued as measuring 5 7/8 by 9 1/2  in.)
Pierre Courthion, Georges Seurat, New York, 1968, p. 83, illustrated in color
André Chastel & Fiorella Minervino, Tout l’oeuvre peint de Seurat, Milan, 1971, cat. no. 33, p. 93, illustrated
Catherine Grenier, Seurat, Catalogo complete dei dipinti, Florence, 1990, cat. no. 34, p. 35, illustrated

Very good condition. The extreme edges bear some frame abrasion and are unvarnished. There are some minor losses to the edges, but the medium on the surface of the panel is intact and in very good condition. The panel itself is structurally sound.
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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Landscape was the predominant genre in Seurat’s works of the early 1880s, and the young artist often made painting excursions to the countryside outside Paris in search of subjects. These early oils and drawings were pronouncedly influenced by the Realism of mid nineteenth-century Barbizon artists such as Corot and Millet, and several of the places that he visited were associated with this school of painting. Following in the footsteps of these artists and their rural subject-matter, Seurat often depicted scenes of everyday life, populating his landscapes with figures such as farmers, mowers or stone breakers working in the fields. In the present work he represents a group of four peasants levelling the earth, capturing them in movement, emphasising the physical, exhausting nature of their labour as they raise their scythes high beneath the midday sun. Social class, as well as themes of work and play, would preoccupy the artist throughout his career, and the following year he would controversially depict labourers at rest in his iconic Bathers at Asnières. The technique employed in this picture also attests to the influence of Delacroix, whose work Seurat had studied in depth in 1881, making detailed notes on the expressive use of color, exploring the possibility of using small, separate touches of pigment rather than pre-mixing shades on the palette. Signac has observed that in Seurat’s oeuvre this technique can be traced as far back as these early rural scenes, writing: “… from 1882, he applied the laws of contrast to color and painted with separate elements – using muted tones, it is true – without having being influenced by the Impressionists for at this point he was not aware of their existence” (Paul Signac, D’Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionnisme, 1899). The distinct, separate applications of color here, notably to convey the effect of sunlight on the cornfield in the foreground, foreshadow the Post-Impressionist, Pointillist technique that would become the hallmark of Seurat’s mature style. By creating a dynamic composition, juxtaposing bright and cool tonalities, contrasting the sky and the workmen’s shirts with the sun-drenched fields and cottages, he evocatively builds a sense of space and depth.

Les Terrassiers belongs to a series of small-scale paintings on panel that Seurat produced around this time. Writing about these works from 1881-83, Alain Madeleine Perdrillat observed that “he 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 marvellous 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 first owner of this picture was the artist's brother Emile.  It was later owned by Captain Victor Alexander Cazalet, a British member of parliament who was killed in battle during the Second World War. Afterward it was acquired by Mrs. William M. Elkins (née Elizabeth C. Norris, 1898-1950), who had formed a collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist with her late husband at Briar Hill, their home outside of Philadelphia. Much of the Elkins' collection was gifted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but this work was purchased by Mrs. Elkin's after her husband's death and sold to the Mellons in 1950.