L'écho (Echo), study for Une baignade, Asnières (Bathers at Asnières) Artist: Georges Seurat (French, 1859–1891)

1883–84

Prints and Drawings

By appointment, Duffy Study Room

This drawing is one of several known conté crayon studies for Georges Seurat's large 1884 oil painting, Bathers at Asnieres (National Gallery, London). For this highly finished drawing, Seurat used his characteristic, toothy Michallet paper, which captured bits of the crayon as it worked across the paper's surface, leaving minute areas of the sheet void of medium. The overall effect is one that beautifully simulates, in monotone, the flickering qualities of Seurat's Pointillist canvases. There are no sharp contours in this image: forms are defined by juxtaposed areas of conté tone rather than by line. By filling the entire sheet with the figure's head and upper torso and sharply cropping the boy's elbow and hat, Seurat isolated the figure both physically and psychologically—an effect that he transferred to the finished canvas.

Medium

Conté crayon on Michallet paper

Dimensions

12 5/16 × 9 7/16 in. (31.2 × 24 cm)
framed: 21 1/2 × 18 1/4 × 7/8 in. (54.61 × 46.36 × 2.22 cm)

Credit Line

Bequest of Edith Malvina K. Wetmore

Accession Number

1966.80.11

Culture

French

Period

19th century

Classification

Drawings

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Paul Signac, Paris; Jean Ajalbert, Paris; Wildenstein & Co., New York; Edith Malvina K. Wetmore
Bibliography
  • Robert L. Herbert et al., Seurat and the Making of La Grande Jatte, 1st ed., exh. cat. (Chicago, Ill.: Art Institute of Chicago, 2004), 49, no. 25
  • Robert L. Herbert et al., Georges Seurat: 1859–1891, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991), 169, no. 117
  • Erich Franz and Bernd Growe, Georges Seurat: Zeichnungen, 1st ed., exh. cat. (Munich, Germany: Prestel-Verlag, 1983), 150, no. 64
  • Seurat 1859–1891: Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. (New York: Knoedler and Company, 1949), 26, no. 26
  • Germain Seligman, The Drawings of Georges Seurat, 1st ed. (New York, N.Y.: Curt Valentin, 1947), 99, no. 1, Plate No. 1
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

human figures (visual works), portraits, studies (visual works)

Inscriptions

Inscribed verso, in red chalk: 371\r\nIn blue chalk: G. Seurat / L. \r\nInscribed in graphite: frand marge bleute

Technical metadata and APIs

IIIF

Open in Mirador

View IIIF manifest

The International Image Interoperability Framework, or IIIF, is an open standard for delivering high-quality, attributed digital objects online at scale. Visit iiif.io to learn more

Linked Art

API response for this object

Linked Art is a Community working together to create a shared Model based on Linked Open Data to describe Art.