Boat by the Riverbank

This small study is one of some fourteen preparatory oil sketches for Georges Seurat's first major large-scale painting, Bathers at Asnières, purchased by the Courtauld Fund for the National Gallery, London in 1924. The small, delicately applied dabs of paint recall those used by Monet and Renoir in their own riverside landscapes of the 1870s. Formerly in the collection of Samuel Courtauld, acquired by the Samuel Courtauld Trust, with the assistance of The National Heritage Memorial Fund, The Art Fund and others, 2000.