Georges Seurat's monumental Bathers at Asnieres (1884), for which this is a preparatory work, is now in the National Gallery, London. A scene of men and boys on the bank of the Seine River in the working-class suburb of Asnieres, it differs greatly in mood from the sparkling scenes of riverside leisure painted by Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Nevertheless, the focus on modernity, use of pure, light pigments, and airy brushwork shows how this young artist furthered the most progressive tendencies of "classic" Impressionism. The same year he exhibited this painting he also began making studies of a site directly across the river for his monumental Sunday on La Grande Jatte.