Georges Seurat – Young Woman Powdering Herself

Young Woman Powdering Herself – a hand-painted reproduction of Seurat’s painting

Young Woman Powdering Herself is Seurat’s last large figure painting, made between 1888 and 1890, and among our paintings on canvas it is the most private he ever made: the only portrait of the woman he lived with. The original hangs in The Courtauld in London. Ours is made as a hand-painted painting, oil on canvas, dot by dot.

What is on the canvas

A young woman sits at a small table, turned three-quarters towards us, raising a powder puff to her cheek. She fills almost the whole picture — heavy arms, a pale corset, dark hair pinned up — while the room behind her is built from dots of violet, green and warm rose that never settle into a flat wall. A cane table stands at the left, and above it hangs a small picture of a vase of flowers. The puff, the mirror and the sloping table top are nearly the only straight lines in a painting otherwise made of curves.

The sitter, and the portrait Seurat painted out

The model is Madeleine Knobloch, who lived with Seurat and bore him two sons. He kept the relationship from his friends and his family, and this canvas, shown at the Salon des Indépendants in 1890, was the only portrait of her he exhibited. It also hides something. A scanner built by the Italian Institute of Optics showed that the vase of flowers in the upper left was painted over a reflection of Seurat himself at work — which would have been the only self-portrait he ever made. He covered it over. The flowers are what is left of it.

A note on the original

The original is oil on canvas. The museum measures it 95.5 cm high and 79.5 cm wide; we state width first and then height, so with us it is written 79.5 x 95.5 cm, and the table spells the order out in words as well. The details are read from The Courtauld’s own record: dated 1888–90, Samuel Courtauld Trust. It is an upright picture and stays upright at every size we make.

What you receive

The painting is made by our painter by hand, oil on canvas, in the size you choose, and to your own measurements if you prefer. It is a warm picture — pinks, ochres and violets — so it holds a wall that gets little daylight, and the upright shape suits a chimney breast or the space beside a wardrobe. When the canvas is finished we photograph it and send you the picture for approval before it leaves the studio. You choose the frame in our 3D application. Every artwork we sell is hand-painted and never printed.

These are the last Paris years. This shelf also carries Le Chahut, painted in the same months, and Les Poseuses, the large studio picture Seurat was working towards in the years he met Madeleine.

• Le Chahut
• Les Poseuses (The Models)