Horses in the Water
- Artist: Georges Seurat
- Date: c. 1883
- Medium: oil on panel
- Museum: The Courtauld Gallery
- Collection record: The Courtauld Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the “Horses in the Water” by Georges Seurat. The work dates to about 1883 and is executed in oil on panel. It’s a fascinating study that prefigures Seurat’s later “Bathers at Asnières” in London, but with a different twist. In this sketch the artist kept the basic outline of the riverbank and the distant factory line that appear in the finished version. However, instead of the horses that eventually figure into “Bathers at Asnières,” Seurat sketched in two bathing boys. One of them sports the striking red trunks that the rider in the foreground of the final painting would later wear. The overall composition is quite loose, suggesting an early experiment with the light and shadow along the water’s edge. The panel gives the piece a subtle, slightly warmer texture than canvas, and Seurat’s brushwork hints at his developing pointillist technique. Even though the final painting abandoned the horses, this sketch reveals how the artist was playing with the scene’s rhythm and balance before settling on the more famous composition. The piece is a valuable window into Seurat’s creative process during the early 1880s.
See it in person
Horses in the Water hangs in The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, London. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
