{"id":81410,"date":"2021-09-02T17:43:10","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T15:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/uncategorized\/sunday-afternoon-on-the-island-of-la-grande-jatte\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T12:48:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T10:48:05","slug":"sunday-afternoon-on-the-island-of-la-grande-jatte","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/en\/georges-seurat\/sunday-afternoon-on-the-island-of-la-grande-jatte\/","title":{"rendered":"Georges Seurat \u2013 Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is Seurat\u2019s largest and best-known work, painted between 1884 and 1886: a Sunday afternoon beside the Seine on the island of La Grande Jatte, just outside Paris. It is built dot by dot, in the technique Seurat invented himself. The original is held by the Art Institute of Chicago, accession number 1926.224. We make it as a hand-painted canvas painting, oil on canvas, in eight sizes or to your own measurements, with a photograph of the finished work sent for approval before dispatch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n<\/table>\n

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte \u2013 Georges Seurat<\/h2>\n

Who are the people in the park?<\/h3>\n

Nobody the museum record names. Seurat painted Parisians on a Sunday afternoon, not acquaintances. At the right, in the foreground, a bourgeois couple: a woman in a bustle, a man in a top hat, a monkey on a lead, a dog. At the left, in the grass, a man in a vest and straw hat with a pipe, beside him a woman with a red parasol. Then an oarsman, a nurse with a stiff upright bow, a man with a horn, two girls. In the middle a girl in white \u2014 the only figure who looks straight out at you. The Art Institute of Chicago names none of them and neither do we: a city on its day off, not a portrait of known people. That is why the figures read as everyone and no one at once.<\/p>\n

What is on the canvas?<\/h3>\n

The canvas is very wide and horizontal. Two thirds of the left is sunlit grass; the right side and the foreground lie under the cool, bluish shade of the big trees. The people sit in three bands running back into depth: seated in the shade at the front, walking in the sun in the middle, tiny figures at the water\u2019s edge behind. Boats and a steamer move on the Seine, and tree shadows lie across the lawn in dark bars. Everything is built from small, separate dots of pure colour that mix into grass, water and cloth only in your eye \u2014 up close, a mesh of orange, blue, green and violet touches. The border is painted too: Seurat added that dotted band three years after he finished, and it belongs to the work.<\/p>\n

Why does this painting matter?<\/h3>\n

Because a new pictorial language came out of it. Seurat went to the island for two years, made dozens of oil studies, then assembled the composition in the studio, reducing every figure to an almost geometric outline. When the work hung at the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1886, pointillism became the name of a movement rather than one man\u2019s idea, and the circle we now call Neo-Impressionism formed around him. This French painter died five years later, aged thirty-one. If you have ever searched for the famous painting of people in a park, this is it.<\/p>\n

What does the painting mean?<\/h3>\n

It tells no story and condemns no one. It fixes Sunday as a ritual: people came to the river to be seen, yet each stands apart, turned a different way, with no conversation anywhere. The figures are in profile or exactly frontal, like an Egyptian relief, and that is why an ordinary scene feels ceremonial. The tension between an everyday subject and a monumental treatment keeps the work alive: the size of a history composition, about a free afternoon. Look longer and you notice one more thing: nothing moves. Stillness, painted in a technique made entirely of small, restless dots.<\/p>\n

What happened to the original?<\/h3>\n

The museum publishes the canvas\u2019s whole route, and it is unusually short. After Seurat died in 1891 the work passed to his mother, who died in 1899, then to his brother \u00c9mile. In 1900 \u00c9mile sold it for eight hundred francs to Casimir Br\u00fb in Paris, who gave it that year to his daughter Lucie; it stayed with her and Edmond Cousturier until 1924, when Frederic Clay and Helen Birch Bartlett of Chicago bought it for twenty thousand dollars, probably through Charles Vildrac. In 1926 the Bartletts gave it to the Art Institute of Chicago, where it hangs in Gallery 240 as part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection. Those figures are the museum\u2019s; we add none.<\/p>\n

Where does the Grande Jatte sit in Seurat\u2019s work?<\/h3>\n

At the start of everything that followed. Seurat made dozens of preparatory works for this canvas; three are separate products here. Study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte<\/a> is the last large colour study, the composition settled and the faces not yet resolved, held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a> in New York. Gray Weather, Grande Jatte<\/a> shows the same island with not one Sunday figure on it, under a covered sky. Lady with a Monkey<\/a> is the study for exactly that couple at the right. Straight after the Grande Jatte came the big canvas The Models (Les Poseuses)<\/a>, in which the Grande Jatte hangs on the studio wall behind the figures: the painter put his best-known work inside the next one.<\/p>\n

How is our hand-painted version made?<\/h3>\n

This is made with a brush and oil paint, never a printer. Our painter works from a high-resolution museum file and builds the surface the way Seurat did: dot after dot, layer over layer, so the colours mix in the eye, not on the palette. The method is slow, and on this subject it is the reason for the price \u2014 at the large sizes, tens of thousands of individual touches of the brush. We keep the painted border of 1888, because it is part of the work and not a frame. Because everything is done by hand, no two canvases are quite the same and every hand-painted copy stays a one-off. We hold no studio photographs of this finished work yet; when it is next painted we will photograph it and the photographs will appear here.<\/p>\n

Which size for which wall?<\/h3>\n

If you do not know which: 200 x 140 cm. The original measures 308 x 208 cm, and our largest size matches it one to one \u2014 the only work in our Seurat gallery where that is possible. The subject is very wide, close to 3 : 2, and needs a long, unbroken wall: above a large sofa, in a dining room, or in a hallway with a few metres of standing room. Made of many small figures, it gains at the larger sizes: 100 x 70 and 120 x 80 cm read as a detail, 140 x 95 and 160 x 110 cm sit well above a sofa, at 180 x 120 and 200 x 140 cm the figures read one by one, and 250 x 170 and 308 x 208 cm belong in large rooms, foyers and stairwells. Every copy is made to order.<\/p>\n

Custom size, stretcher bar and frame<\/h3>\n

If none of the eight sizes fits your wall, we paint to your measurements and keep the ratio of the original so the composition is never squeezed; that is our custom size painting<\/a> service. You can order the painting in three forms: as a rolled canvas without a stretcher, stretched on a wooden stretcher bar and ready to hang, or framed; you choose the form when you order. For the frame, use our 3D frame viewer: on this subject it shows every profile we carry \u2014 gold, silver, black, white, natural wood \u2014 and it is for choosing a frame and nothing else. To see the work on your own wall, use our separate room-visualisation service, ordered on its own.<\/p>\n

Delivery and guarantee<\/h3>\n

Every copy is made to order in our Slovenian studio, so allow 15 to 45 days depending on size; the largest formats take longest. We ship it in the form you chose when ordering \u2014 rolled, stretched or framed \u2014 protected for transport, across the EU, customs-free. Before dispatch you approve a photograph of the finished work, and our returns policy applies to every order. The full range is in the Georges Seurat gallery<\/a>, and his life and method are described in our article about Georges Seurat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Frequently asked questions<\/h3>\n

Where is the original?<\/h4>\n

In the Art Institute of Chicago, in Gallery 240, under accession number 1926.224.<\/p>\n

Do the figures in the scene have names?<\/h4>\n

No. The museum record names none of them: anonymous Parisians on a Sunday outing, not sitters.<\/p>\n

Is \u201cA Sunday on La Grande Jatte \u2014 1884\u201d the same work?<\/h4>\n

Yes. That is the museum\u2019s English title; the French is \u201cUn dimanche apr\u00e8s-midi \u00e0 l\u2019\u00cele de la Grande Jatte\u201d. One and the same canvas.<\/p>\n

Is this a print?<\/h4>\n

No. It is an oil painting reproduction, painted by hand on linen; the brushwork is visible and can be felt.<\/p>\n

Which size should I choose?<\/h4>\n

For an ordinary living room, 200 x 140 cm; for the size of the original, 308 x 208 cm. The full guide is above.<\/p>\n

Can I have a size that is not listed?<\/h4>\n

Yes. We paint to measure, keeping the side ratio of the original.<\/p>\n

How is it delivered?<\/h4>\n

In the form you chose (rolled, stretched on a stretcher or framed), 15 to 45 days after you approve the photograph.<\/p>\n

What is the painting about, in one sentence?<\/h4>\n

A city on its day off, held still: many people on one riverbank and not one conversation between them.<\/p>\n

Is the original for sale and what is it worth?<\/h4>\n

No. The canvas is in the public collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and is not for sale; a hand-painted canvas of ours is the only way to have it at home.<\/p>\n

How high should I hang it?<\/h4>\n

Centre at eye level, about 145\u2013150 cm from the floor; above a sofa, 15\u201325 cm above the back. At the largest sizes hang lower, so the top edge stays in view.<\/p>\n

Is it suitable as a gift?<\/h4>\n

With this subject you choose a large format and a long wall, so check the room carries the size before you buy. To leave the choice to the person receiving it, there is our gift voucher<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Title:<\/td>\nSunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other titles:<\/td>\nA Sunday on La Grande Jatte \u2014 1884 \u00b7 Un dimanche apr\u00e8s-midi \u00e0 l\u2019\u00cele de la Grande Jatte<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Painter:<\/td>\nGeorges Seurat (1859\u20131891)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Year painted:<\/td>\n1884\u20131886, painted border added 1888\u20131889; signed \u201cSeurat\u201d lower right<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original size:<\/td>\n308.1 cm x 207.5 cm<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original technique:<\/td>\nOil on canvas<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Painting style:<\/td>\nPointillism<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Located at:<\/td>\nArt Institute of Chicago<\/a>, Chicago (acc. no. 1926.224)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Our reproduction:<\/td>\nhand-painted in oil on linen, 8 sizes from 100 x 70 cm to 308 x 208 cm, custom sizes on request<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n