ALFRED SISLEY | La Seine au point du jour

M.A. Dachery, Paris (and sold: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 30, 1899, lot 52)
Bonjean Collection, Paris (acquired at the above sale)
Jules Strauss, Paris (and sold: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 3, 1902, lot 59)
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris
Maine Collection, Paris (acquired from the above)
André Schoeller, Paris
Albert Poullot, Paris
Private Collection, Canada (acquired from the above on September 4, 1938)
Private Collection (and sold: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 19, 2001, lot 27)
Richard Green Fine Paintings, Ltd., London
Acquired from the above

Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, Tableux, études, pastels par Alfred Sisley, 1899, no. 80
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Tableaux de Sisley, 1930, no. 17
London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of French Art, 1932, no. 499
Paris, Galerie d'art Braun, Sisley, 1933, no. 4
London, Leicester Gallery, French Painting, 1936, no. 3
Paris, Palais national des arts, Chefs-d'oeuvres de l'art français, 1937, no. 418

François Daulte, Alfred Sisley, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Lausanne, 1959, no. 295, illustrated n.p.

In the winter of 1877-78, Sisley moved to Sèvres, a town along the Seine in close proximity to Paris (see fig. 1). Industrialization was permeating the towns along the Seine and Sisley's move facilitated an exploration of the relationship between nature and industry in his paintings (see fig. 2). In La Seine au point du jour, the vibrant blue of water and sky seamlessly merge with the dark docks that portray the creeping presence of industry. Writing about Sisley's paintings executed in this region, Vivienne Couldrey observes, "In the area of Louveciennes along the valley of the Seine he found waiting for him the kind of landscape he was to love all his life. Westward from Paris the Seine winds in large loops through Suresnes, Villeneuve-la-Garenne, Argenteuil, Bougival, Sèvres, Ville d'Avray, Louveciennes, Noisy-le-Roi, Port-Marly; the villages are strung along the river, clustered around Versailles. It is an area rich in historical associations" (Vivienne Couldrey, Alfred Sisley, The English Impressionist, Exeter, 1992, p. 33).

The dissonance between nature and industry within La Seine au point du jour is symbolic of the Impressionist motive to depict the modernity of their age. Impressionists thrived on the landscapes along the Seine, but needed to be close to Paris to maintain contact with galleries and fellow artists. Compared to his contemporaries, Sisley maintained a distance from industrialization that is expressed in the all-encompassing presence of the sky in La Seine au point du jour. The broad, vibrant strokes give the painting a vibrancy that breathes life into the scene.

Gustave Geffroy writes of Sisley’s landscapes, “The sky is vast, the air circulates, golden and delicate... Sisley is increasingly a painter of the sky, vast, peaceful skies quivering from the low horizon to the zenith with a soft, pink tone, with shades of pale blue” (Gustave Geffroy, "Alfred Sisley," in Les Cahiers d’aujourd’hui, Paris, 1923, pp. 13-14).



This work will be included in the new edition of the Catalogue Raisonné of Alfred Sisley by François Daulte now being prepared by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau for the Comité Alfred Sisley.