Painted in 1878 or 1879 at Saint-Ouen, a suburb just north of Paris, this is the earliest known of Seurat's oil sketches from nature. Aman-Jean, a painter and good friend of the artist, remembered accompanying Seurat to the site.

Originally this work was part of a double-sided panel that was divided after 1950 into two separate panels. The other side, a landscape with a free copy after Puvis de Chavannes's "Le Pauvre pêcheur" (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), is now in a private collection.

Félix Fénéon, Paris (by 1935–d. 1944; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 30, 1947, no. 99 [recto and verso], as "Paysage au tas de bois," for Fr 191,000 to Courcelle); Courcelle (in 1947); sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 10, 1950, no. 122 [recto and verso], as "Paysage au tas de bois," for Fr 450,000; [Berès, Paris]; [Jacques Dubourg, Paris, in 1950]; Anna Maria Biondi, Beverly Hills (until 1951; her sale, Kende Galleries, New York, November 15, 1951, no. 90, as "Paysage," for $1,200); George N. Richard, New York (by 1954–d. 1973); his widow, Bernice Richard, New York (1973–80)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Georges Seurat, 1859–1891," September 24, 1991–January 12, 1992, no. 76.

New York. Robert Lehman Collection. "Neo-Impressionism: The Circle of Paul Signac," October 1–December 31, 2001, no catalogue.

Félix Fénéon. Letter to Benedict Nicolson. 1938 [excerpt published in Ref. Nicolson 1962, p. 214], relates Aman-Jean's recollection of seeing Seurat paint it at Saint-Ouen; remarks that Aman-Jean dated it 1884–85; dates it himself to 1881, the year that Puvis exhibited "The Poor Fisherman" (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) at the Salon, noting that Seurat copied Puvis's picture on the reverse.

Henri Dorra and John Rewald. Seurat: L'œuvre peint, biographie et catalogue critique. Paris, 1959, pp. 2–3, no. 3, ill., date it about 1879–80; state that the two sides of the panel [see Notes] were separated in 1951.

C[ésar]. M[ange]. de Hauke. Seurat et son œuvre. Paris, 1961, vol. 1, pp. 4–5, no. 7, ill., dates it about 1881.

Benedict Nicolson. "Reflections on Seurat." The Burlington Magazine 104 (May 1962), p. 214, believes that this picture "is unlikely to date before" 1881 [see Ref. Fénéon 1938].

Fiorella Minervino in L'opera completa di Seurat. [1st, French ed., 1973]. Milan, 1972, p. 91, no. 7, ill., dates it 1881–82; as in the Richard collection.

Charles S. Moffett in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1980–1981. New York, 1981, pp. 46–47, ill., dates it about 1881; notes that this "extremely simplified impression of the landscape along the Seine reflects Seurat's early inclination toward synthesis of form and a systematic brushstroke".

Richard Thomson. Seurat. Oxford, 1985, p. 57, remarks that, because it is a depiction of a suburb, it is not a "pure" landscape.

Robert L. Herbert et al. Georges Seurat, 1859–1891. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1991, pp. 105, 109–10, 433, no. 76, ill. (color) [French ed., "Seurat", Paris, 1991, pp. 146, 149–50, no. 75, ill. (color)], dates it 1879, yet suggests that it was painted in 1878 or 1879; believes that it is Seurat's earliest surviving landscape.

Michael F. Zimmermann. Seurat and the Art Theory of His Time. Antwerp, 1991, pp. 149, 458 n. 81, colorpl. 281, dates it about 1881.

The reverse of this panel originally depicted a copy by Seurat after Puvis de Chavannes's "Poor Fisherman" (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). The two sides of the panel were separated in 1950 or 1951, before the Biondi sale, when they were sold as nos. 90–91. The other work is in the collection of Huguette Berès, Paris (DR4; H6) .