Description
The Stone Breaker is Seurat’s early oil sketch of 1882: a labourer breaking rocks at the roadside. The original measures 24.8 x 15.6 centimetres, is painted on a wooden panel, and is held in Washington by The Phillips Collection under object number 1727. From us it is painted entirely by hand, oil on canvas, in eight sizes or to your own measurements, and before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished work for approval.
| Title: | The Stone Breaker |
| Other titles: | The Stone Breaker · Le Casseur de pierres |
| Painter: | Georges Seurat (1859–1891) |
| Year painted: | 1882 |
| Original size: | 24.8 cm x 15.6 cm |
| Original technique: | Oil on cradled wood panel |
| Painting style: | Early oil sketch (croqueton) – before pointillism |
| Located at: | The Phillips Collection, Washington (object no. 1727, acquired 1940) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted oil on canvas, 8 sizes from 25 x 16 cm to 150 x 100 cm, custom size on request |
The Stone Breaker – Georges Seurat
What is in the painting?
A single labourer breaking rocks for the road. The museum says where: Le Raincy, north-east of Paris. The scene is small and compressed, with no narrative and no caption – man, tool, stones and a sunlit road, and nothing else. A canvas painting of this kind does not want to explain anything; it only wants you to look.
The museum also points out what is not in it. Seurat chose the subject following Jean-François Millet, but unlike Millet he intended no ideological or social comment on the hardships of peasant life. He was closer to Courbet, who had painted the same subject thirty years earlier: the stonebreaker is worth depicting without concocting literature on the worker’s emotions. That is the museum’s account, not ours.
What is a croqueton?
A small oil sketch on panel. The museum says that between 1880 and 1883, very early in his career, Seurat painted several of them and that they were called croquetons. Most are compact vignettes of labourers – reapers, gardeners, haymakers, stonebreakers – toiling in the sunlit fields and roads of the suburbs around Paris.
Here that matters for one reason: a sketch like this is not a shrunken canvas but a form of its own. It was made quickly and on the spot, and so it holds more stroke than detail. The same way of working, a few years later, is shown by The Morning Walk in London.
Are there dots in this work?
No, and that is the most important thing to know about it. It was made in 1882, some years before Seurat developed his method of small separate dots. The museum sets him here beside Millet and Courbet rather than beside colour theory, and says nothing about dots.
The method of dots came later and led to the large scene held by the Art Institute of Chicago – Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Anyone looking for work made of dots will find several in our Seurat gallery; this is not one of them, and we will not write it otherwise because it would sell better. The same path leads on to the coastal canvases, for instance The Channel of Gravelines from the last year of his work, where the dot is fully formed.
Why a cradled panel?
Because it is wood. The museum names the support precisely: oil on cradled wood panel. A cradle is a lattice of battens glued to the back of a panel to keep it flat and stop it warping – the museum even gives the measurement with it, 16.8 x 26.0 centimetres, and the framed measurement, 27.9 x 36.8 centimetres. In the table we give the panel itself, 24.8 x 15.6 cm, because that is the size of the painted scene.
Our version is in oil colours on canvas and not on wood, and we do not blur that. What we carry across is the stroke and the colour; we do not imitate the support, because canvas and panel do not behave alike and we will not promise that they do.
Where does this work stand among Seurat’s paintings?
Right at the beginning. Of the works in our Seurat gallery it is the earliest, and that is exactly what makes it interesting: it shows a painter who is not yet what we know him for. The same people at work appear in Farm Women at Work, also from the early end of his career. A few years later the same look at the suburbs turned towards the river: so The Seine at Courbevoie, which we sell in our Seurat gallery with no year and no size, because it is in a private collection and nobody has catalogued it.
The movement he later led is called neo-impressionism, and its technique pointillism. Anyone who wants to see where he came from starts with sketches like this one: a fine art reproduction made of small dots grew out of these little, quickly painted panels.
How is our hand-painted version made?
By hand and with a brush, never with a printer. Our painter works in oil colours on canvas, and with this subject restraint is the hardest part: the scene has to stay a sketch and must not become a finished work. The stroke has to be broad and decided, or the very thing the work exists for is lost. Every hand-painted copy is therefore one of a kind and no two are quite alike. Before dispatch we photograph the work and send you the photograph for approval.
For this subject we currently have no studio photographs of our own of the finished work. When we next paint it, we will photograph it, and the photographs will appear on this page.
Which size for which wall?
If you do not know which: 60 x 40 cm. The original is very small – 24.8 x 15.6 cm – and our smallest size, 25 x 16 cm, is only a few millimetres away from it. If you want the work at the size it was made, that is the size to choose.
The format is landscape and low, so it sits well above a door, between windows, or as a narrow band above a sideboard. 25 x 16 cm for a shelf or a table; 50 x 30 and 60 x 40 cm for a living room; 70 x 45 and 80 x 50 cm stand on their own; 90 x 60, 120 x 75 and 150 x 100 cm turn the sketch into a large work, which a stroke this broad carries without difficulty. Every copy of this subject is made to order.
Custom size, stretcher and frame
If none of the eight sizes fits your wall, we paint it to your measurements and keep the ratio of the original, so the scene is never stretched; that is our custom size painting. Every copy arrives stretched on a wooden stretcher, ready to hang, and you choose the frame in our 3D frame viewer. With this subject that is not a detail: the museum gives the framed measurement for the original too, which shows how much a frame adds to a work this small. To see it on your own wall, use our separate room-placement service.
Delivery and guarantee
Every copy is made to order in our studio in Slovenia, so allow 15 to 45 days depending on size. We ship it stretched and protected, framed if you chose one, across the EU, customs-free. You approve a photograph first, and our returns policy applies. The full range by this painter is in the Georges Seurat gallery, and his early sketches are in our article on Georges Seurat.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the original?
In Washington, at The Phillips Collection, object number 1727. The museum records that it was acquired in 1940.
What year is it from?
The museum dates it to 1882 – a single year, so that is how we give it.
How big is the original?
The museum gives 15.56 x 24.77 centimetres, which in our width-by-height notation is 24.8 x 15.6 cm. It is a very small panel.
What is a cradle?
A lattice of wooden battens glued to the back of a panel to keep it flat. The museum gives the measurement with it separately: 16.8 x 26.0 centimetres.
Is this painting in dots?
No. The work is from 1882, some years before the method of small dots, and the museum sets it beside Millet and Courbet rather than colour theory.
What does croqueton mean?
A small oil sketch on panel. The museum says Seurat made several between 1880 and 1883, mostly of labourers at work.
Where was it painted?
In Le Raincy, north-east of Paris; that is what the museum states.
Which size should I choose?
For a living room, 60 x 40 cm. If you want the size of the original, choose 25 x 16 cm.
Can I have a size that is not on the list?
Yes. We paint to measure and keep the ratio of the sides of the original.
Is this a print?
No. It is an oil painting reproduction made by hand; the strokes can be seen and felt, which a print cannot imitate.
Is it suitable as a gift?
Yes. The subject is quiet and serious, and small sizes read as personal. To leave the choice to the recipient, there is a gift voucher.
- Subject: a labourer breaking rocks at the roadside in Le Raincy – a small, rapid sketch
- Original: 24.8 x 15.6 cm, oil on wood panel, The Phillips Collection, Washington (1727)
- Our version: a hand-painted famous painting on canvas, eight sizes from 25 x 16 to 150 x 100 cm
- Important: this French painter made this before the dots – there are none here yet
