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Dimensions: 15.8 by 24.5cm., 6 1/4 by 9 5/8 in.

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Provenance: Bernheim-Jeune, Paris
Brown Boveri Collection, Baden
Thence by descent to the present owner

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Literature: Henri Dorra & John Rewald, Seurat, L'AEuvre peint; Biographie et catalogue critique, Paris, 1959, no. 105, illustrated p. 112
C. M. de Hauke, Seurat et son aeuvre, Paris, 1961, vol. I, no. 97, illustrated p. 61
André Chastel & Fiorella Minervino, Tout l'aeuvre peint de Seurat, Paris, 1973, no. 103, illustrated p. 98

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Notes: Berge de la Seine signals the transition in Georges Seurat's artistic aeuvre from Impressionism towards Post-Impressionism and Pointillism. It was created in 1884, the same year as the artist began to work on one of the masterpieces of the Post-Impressionist movement, A Sunday Afternoon on the Ile de la Grande Jatte, completed in 1886. In the present work Seurat deploys an impressionist colour palette and applies impulsive and irregular brushstrokes to represent the sky and the river bank. However, in Seurat's treatment of the water the size of the brushstrokes become more regular and the contours appear clearer, suggesting the development of a more organised and calculated style of painting. This trend would culminate with Grande Jatte, in which Seurat dismissed the exaggerated individualism of the Impressionists in favour of an intellectual and scientific brushwork, which puts the work, and not the artist, to the fore.

This work came to the present owner by descent from the Brown Bovari Collection. The Brown Bovari family founded the BBC machine factory in Baden Baden.