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Lot Essay
The year 1879 was a turbulent one for Sisley. His financial difficulties made him turn once again to the Salon only to find his paintings rejected. Unable to pay the rent, he was on the verge of being evicted from his home when the financier, Georges Charpentier, helped him to move to a new residence at 164 Grande Rue in Sèvres. Sisley painted a number of views of the town and its surrounding villages and despite the severe privations and lack of commercial success, he continued to remain a true Impressionist painter by concentrating on light, color and atmosphere. It was also about this time that he developed his mature style of varied surface texture by using looser, more rhythmical brush strokes.
Famously Sisley never enjoyed great acclaim or financial security during his life-time. It was not until the end of his career that his talent began to receive recognition. Camille Mauclair declared in The French Impressionists (1860-1900) that Sisley's landscapes 'will figure among the most charming landscapes of our epoch... But in all that concerns the mild aspects of the Ile de France, the sweet and fresh landscapes, Sisley is not unworthy of being compared with Monet. He equals him in numerous pictures; he has a similar delicacy of perception, a similar fervour of execution. He is the painter of great blue rivers curving towards the horizon; of red-roofed hamlets scattered about; he is beyond all, the painter of French skies which he represents with admirable vivacity and facility' (quoted in C. Lloyd, 'The Case for Alfred Sisley,' in exh. cat. Alfred Sisley Retrospective, Tokyo, 1985, p. 16).
Famously Sisley never enjoyed great acclaim or financial security during his life-time. It was not until the end of his career that his talent began to receive recognition. Camille Mauclair declared in The French Impressionists (1860-1900) that Sisley's landscapes 'will figure among the most charming landscapes of our epoch... But in all that concerns the mild aspects of the Ile de France, the sweet and fresh landscapes, Sisley is not unworthy of being compared with Monet. He equals him in numerous pictures; he has a similar delicacy of perception, a similar fervour of execution. He is the painter of great blue rivers curving towards the horizon; of red-roofed hamlets scattered about; he is beyond all, the painter of French skies which he represents with admirable vivacity and facility' (quoted in C. Lloyd, 'The Case for Alfred Sisley,' in exh. cat. Alfred Sisley Retrospective, Tokyo, 1985, p. 16).