Alfred Sisley

Jules Feder, Paris
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on 25th June 1892)
M & Mme Jean d'Alayer de Costemore d'Arc, Paris (by descent from the above in 1949)
Private Collection, Japan
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Paris, 6 rue le Peletier, Troisième Exposition des Impressionnistes, 1877, no. 129
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir et Sisley, 1899, no. 129
London, Grafton Gallery, Pictures by Boudin, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, 1905, no. 283
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir et Sisley, 1925, no. 1
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Tableaux de Sisley, 1930, no. 22
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Sisley, 1937, no. 8
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Sisley, 1957, no. 14
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Alfred Sisley, 1971, no. 18, illustrated in the catalogue
London, David Caritt Ltd., Alfred Sisley, 1981, no. 5, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Paris, Didier Imbert Fine Art, Tableaux XIX & XXe siècles, 1987, no. 5

Charles L. Borgmeyer, The Master Impressionists, Chicago, 1913, illustrated p. 219
Gustave Geffroy, Sisley, Paris, 1927, illustrated pl. 19
George Besson, Sisley, Paris, 1946, illustrated pl. 19
Gotthard Jedlicka, Sisley, Berne, 1949, illustrated pl. 16
François Daulte, Alfred Sisley, Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint, Paris, 1959, no. 110, illustrated
Richard Nathanson, 'The English French Impressionist', in The Sunday Times Magazine, 14th June 1981, illustrated p. 46

The canvas is lined. Apart from some areas of retouching along all four framing edges and three spots of retouching towards the lower right edge, visible under ultra-violet light, this work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the trees have a less brown and more purple tonality in the original.
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The crisp winter light that saturates La Seine près de Bougival – matin d’hiver marks it out as one of Sisley's most successful evocations of the seasons he committed to canvas during this important period of his career. The artist has focused on the river and the dusk-pink morning sky reflected on its surface, the houses of Bougival barely visible through the trees on the right. The town had since the 1860s become increasingly popular as a resort for Parisians keen to escape the ever-growing urban sprawl of the capital. Bougival was untouched by the industrialisation that had affected larger towns further up river such as Asnièrs. Instead small bathing establishments could be found dotted along the riverbanks, which occasionally featured in the Impressionist painters’ works, evoking the faintly idyllic air that still clung to the farther reaches of the Seine.

After the siege of Paris in 1871 during the Franco-Prussian War, Sisley decided to move with his family to the village of Louveciennes, situated on the river Seine, about 20 kilometres west of the capital. He remained in the town until in the winter of 1874, when they moved to the neighbouring Marly-le-Roy. Many of the Impressionists similarly chose to work in the hinterland of Paris: his closest friend and fellow painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a frequent visitor to Louveciennes, and Monet lived upstream at Argenteuil. During his time there, Sisley painted a number of scenes of the village and its winding streets. This setting provided the artist with a new creative impetus and, once settled, he started working with fresh energy.

Sisley found the area surrounding Louveciennes rich with artistic potential. Aside from the town’s own aesthetic attractions, its central position on the Seine between Port Marly, Marly-le-Roi and Bougival provided him with nearly limitless spots on which to set up his easel and study the river’s landscape. He took delight in painting this new environment, trying to capture the effects of season, weather and time of day on the countryside, and experimenting with the effects of light and colour. Preceding his visit to England, in the summer of 1874, the environs of Bougival feature greatly in Sisley's painted output; in particular the same sweeping view over the river toward a high bank surmounted by poplars re-occurs in many of his major compositions of the period (figs. 1 & 2). This was a time of relative prosperity for the artist, marked by his enthusiasm for painting en plein air. La Seine près de Bougival – matin d’hiver reflects the tranquillity of the landscape that fascinated Sisley, who focused on its natural elements, minimising the signs of human presence.

Discussing the compositional decisions Sisley took when painting works such as La Seine près de Bougival – matin d’hiver, Christopher Lloyd writes: ‘The group of paintings by Sisley dating from the 1870s are subject to the strictest pictorial organisation. It is this compositional aspect, in addition to their facture, that makes these paintings, in comparison with landscapes by artists of the Barbizon School, specifically modern. Sisley incorporates an almost relentless array of horizontals, verticals and diagonals deployed as plunging perspectives and flat bands of planar divisions [...]. Yet, Sisley, more so in many cases than even Pissarro and Monet, was more radical than any of his sources, since he seeks to bring order to a world in an ever increasing state of flux. The depiction of modernity was best served by a resolute style derived from astute visual analysis and confident technique’ (C. Lloyd, in Alfred Sisley (exhibition catalogue), Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1992, pp. 14-15).