Esquisse pour l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris : l'été

This 1891 sketch for L'été (Summer) in the Hôtel de Ville de Paris cycle is a working study for one of the four seasonal panels Puvis contributed to the city's principal civic building. Summer offered him the richest allegorical possibilities: abundance, warmth, harvest, the fullness of the natural cycle — all themes central to his decorative vocabulary. The Hôtel de Ville commission proceeded across several years in the early 1890s, with Puvis delivering preparatory canvases of this kind before executing the large final decorations. Now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris, the Summer esquisse shows figures in harvest attitudes, the landscape golden and full, the compositional geometry of the eventual mural already established. The seasonal cycle for the Hôtel de Ville represents the most comprehensive statement of Puvis's civic-allegorical programme, addressing the rhythms of natural and civic time across four panels.

The Summer sketch employs Puvis's warmest palette — deep ochres, amber, and pale gold — and his most relaxed compositional arrangement, with figures spread across a horizontal canvas in attitudes of harvest ease. As in other preparatory studies, brushwork is freer than in the finished decorations, preserving the directness of first conception.