Woman Walking with a Parasol (study for La Grande Jatte)

Woman Walking with a Parasol (study for La Grande Jatte) by Georges Seurat French, 1859-1891, created in 1884, is a critical preparatory drawing for his iconic, monumental painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte-1884. This singular work, classified as a drawing, was executed meticulously using Conté crayon on cream laid paper, a medium Seurat favored for its dense, rich tone and versatility in capturing chiaroscuro effects.

The drawing focuses intensely on the solitary female subject, captured in the stylized profile that became a hallmark of the final composition. Seurat masterfully employed the velvety blackness of the Conté crayon to sculpt the figure, defining her dress and the protective arc of her parasol through manipulation of light and shadow. The heavy, dark application contrasts sharply with the pale ground of the laid paper, achieving a powerful sense of volume and presence despite the lack of color. These tonal studies were essential to the artist's process, providing the structural foundation necessary for his later complex arrangements of color and light in his finished canvases.

As a pivotal figure in the development of Post-Impressionism in France, Seurat undertook dozens of such analytical sketches to refine the individual components and overall composition of A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. This drawing, dated 1884, is vital in understanding the analytical rigor that underpinned his visual theories, which culminated in the technique of Pointillism. The piece is preserved in the extensive collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, a museum holding one of the world's most significant groupings of Seurat’s drawings and paintings. High-quality prints of such preparatory studies from the French master are frequently made available through public domain archives, allowing wider scholarly access to his meticulous process.