Thursday, 1 November 1883

I am going to work at the Grande Jatte — an avenue of trees in golden tones, a medium-sized canvas.

Bojidar came with me, fortunately, for I had not thought that it was a holiday, and when we arrived there we found crowds of boaters — and Rosalie alone might perhaps have been insufficient as a chaperone. In any case, in order to allow myself to come and go and paint on this distinguished island, I dress like an old German woman: two or three wool cardigans to disguise my figure, an overcoat bought for twenty-seven francs, and on my head a large knitted black shawl. Slippers on my feet.

Notes

Island in the Seine near Neuilly, later immortalised by Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1886).
This canvas is very probably Automne (oil on canvas, reported as 117 × 97 cm), an autumn landscape said to be in the State Russian Museum, St Petersburg. The identification rests on Marie's own description of the picture rather than on any documented record, and no adequate reproduction of it is known.