Alfred Sisley

Paul Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist on April 29, 1890)

Private Collection (thence by descent and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 4, 2009)

Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Alfred Sisley, 1957, no. 17 (as dating from 1874)

Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Alfred Sisley, 1971, no. 28, illustrated in the catalogue

Theodore Duret, Histoire des peintres impressionnistes, Paris, 1939 illustrated p. 91

François Daulte, Alfred Sisley, Lausanne, 1959, no. 312, illustrated

François Daulte, Les Paysages de Sisley, Lausanne, 1961, no. 18

François Daulte, Sisley, Milan, 1972, illustrated p. 47

François Daulte, Sisley - Les Saisons, Paris, 1992, no. 25, illustrated p. 47

 

The commune of Sèvres, located just over six miles southwest of central Paris, on the banks of the Seine, was the setting of several of Sisley's landscapes at the height of his involvement with the Impressionist group.  The artist moved to Sèvres in 1877 and spent the next three years painting its landmarks, including its bridges, the station house and the well-known porcelain factory where many artists worked for the national manufacture.  This particular view provides a vivid depiction of the landscape's topography, particularly in its rendering of the steep roadway that trails off into the background.  From the verdant green that dominates the composition, we know that Sisley must have painted this oil in late spring or early summer of 1879.  He had become quite familiar with the region by this point, and in his landscapes he challenged himself by selecting spatially complex and dynamic settings, like the one depicted here.  By the end of the year Sisley would turn his artistic attention towards views of Moret, but his experience in Sèvres was fundamental in shaping his technique for those later landscapes.

The poet Mallarmé wrote the following about Sisley's talent for capturing the nuances of the land in his pictures from the 1870s: "Sisley seizes the passing moments of the day; watches a fugitive cloud and seems to paint it in its flight; on his canvass [sic] the live air moves and the leaves yet thrill and tremble.  He loves best to paint them in spring, or when red and gold and russet-green the last few fall in autumn; for then space and light are one, and the breeze stirring the foliage prevents it from becoming an opaque mass, too heavy for such an impression of mobility and life" (S. Mallarmé, 'The Impressionists and Edouard Manet,' The Art Monthly Review, 1876, translated from the French and reprinted in R. Shone, Sisley, New York, 1992, pp. 118-122).