Gallery Label: 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 scene by daylight (Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia). This is Seurat’s first nocturnal painting and also 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.