Market Porter (Fort de la halle)

The 1920s saw the growth of Seurat's reputation in Britain. In 1927, the British Museum acquired this fine drawing from two anonymous donors via the Art Fund. This is one of three drawings of a market porter that Seurat made around 1882. Wearing a broad-brimmed hat and carrying a stick, the figure is executed in conté crayon on a coarsely textured rag paper. Enhancing the anonymity of the figure is the absence of any detail and his reduction to a silhouette (the artist's favourite device), which imbues the work with monolithic simplicity.