Alfred Sisley 1839 - 1899
Oil on canvas 46.4 x 36.7 cm
Bequeathed by Frank Hindley Smith, 1939
Collections record: 2414
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
The date and subject of this painting have not yet been firmly identified. The view has been severally identified as Moret-sur-Loing, Louveciennes, Port-Marly and Ville d’Avray, and dated both around 1876 and 1892. Sisley lived for long periods in villages along the Seine to the west of Paris until 1880.
From these bases, he made regular painting expeditions in the surrounding countryside and villages in search of pictorial motifs, so that identification of a particular site is not necessarily a clue to its dating. However, the subject – a village street set on a gently descending slope – the play of shadows cast by the buildings which line it, and the vigorous, rhythmic painting of the sky all suggest a date of around 1875 –77.
