Seated Woman with a Parasol (study for La Grande Jatte)

Seated Woman with a Parasol (study for La Grande Jatte) by Georges Seurat: During 1884 and 1885, Georges Seurat was hard at work on the most ambitious painting…

What to notice

Notice how the seated woman becomes a dark geometric silhouette beneath her parasol; the study tests weight and placement more than individual identity.

Discover

During 1884 and 1885, Georges Seurat was hard at work on the most ambitious painting of his career, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 , now a centerpiece of the Art Institute’s collection of 19th-century French painting. The artist’s genesis of this large canvas involved many preparatory studies, which fall primarily into two groups: small compositional sketches and color studies on wooden panels, and nuanced Conté crayon drawings that explore both the empty landscape and the shapes of specific figures or figural g…