Georges Seurat - Circus Sideshow. Parade de cirque 1888

Circus Sideshow 1888
Circus Sideshow. Parade de cirque
1888 100x155cm oil/canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

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Johannes Vermeer - The Girl with a Pearl Earring 1665. It is not a portrait, but a ‘tronie’ – a painting of an imaginary figure. Tronies depict a certain type or character; in this case a girl in exotic dress, wearing an oriental turban and an improbably large pearl in her ear. ArtsViewer.com

From Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City:
At the Salon des Indépendants in 1888 Seurat demonstrated the versatility of his technique by exhibiting Circus Sideshow, a nighttime outdoor scene in artificial light, and Models, an indoor, daylight scene (Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia). This is Seurat’s first nocturnal painting and his first depiction of popular entertainment. It represents the parade, or sideshow, of the Circus Corvi, which had set up near the place de la Nation in Paris in the spring of 1887. Sideshows were held on the street, for free, to entice passersby to purchase tickets. The onlookers at the far right are queued on stairs leading to the box office.