Clothes on the Grass: Study for 'Bathers at Asnières'

This is one of many oil studies for Seurat's first large-scale composition 'Bathers at Asnières' of 1884. This was set in the suburb of Asnières to the north-west of Paris and painted before he had fully evolved his technique of pointillism.

Like most of his other oil studies, this sketch was painted in the open air. Here the artist has suppressed the figures and concentrated on the landscape itself and the bundle of discarded clothing.