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Lot Essay
In the early 1880s Sisley began to frequent the vicinity around Moret-sur-Loing, a small town about twenty-five miles southeast of Paris, and in 1889 he settled there. The present painting depicts the river Loing from the north, most likely from the boatyard at Matrat.
Like Monet, Sisley was fascinated by the concept of executing compositions in a sequence, capturing the changing conditions of light and weather of a single motif at different times of the day and year. Here, he painted the town of Moret basked in sunlight, creating dramatic reflections in the river and along the riverbank. The expansive sky has been rendered in the palest of blues with wispy, striated clouds. The trees are full of leaves rendered in dabs of pink, brown, and gold. The river is a resplendent array of soft pinks, blues and earthy browns, capturing the reflection of the village's buildings and foliage along the horizon. The critic Adolphe Tavernier lauded Sisley in his funeral oration for the artist as "a magician of light, a poet of the heavens, of the waters, of the trees--in a word, one of the most remarkable landscapists of his day" (quoted in M. Stevens, ed., Alfred Sisley, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1992, p. 28).
Sisley was so captivated by the picturesque town that after settling there about eight years after painting the present work, He tried to persuade his friend Monet to join him: "Moret is just two hours journey from Paris, and has plenty of places to let at six hundred to a thousand francs. There is a market once a week, a pretty church, and beautiful scenery round about. If you were thinking of moving, why not come and see?" (quoted in ibid., p. 184). Moret also provided Sisley with a rich array of landscape motifs, from the medieval church and the Porte de Bourgogne, to the stately avenues of poplars and the humble wash-houses on the banks of the Loing.
Like Monet, Sisley was fascinated by the concept of executing compositions in a sequence, capturing the changing conditions of light and weather of a single motif at different times of the day and year. Here, he painted the town of Moret basked in sunlight, creating dramatic reflections in the river and along the riverbank. The expansive sky has been rendered in the palest of blues with wispy, striated clouds. The trees are full of leaves rendered in dabs of pink, brown, and gold. The river is a resplendent array of soft pinks, blues and earthy browns, capturing the reflection of the village's buildings and foliage along the horizon. The critic Adolphe Tavernier lauded Sisley in his funeral oration for the artist as "a magician of light, a poet of the heavens, of the waters, of the trees--in a word, one of the most remarkable landscapists of his day" (quoted in M. Stevens, ed., Alfred Sisley, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1992, p. 28).
Sisley was so captivated by the picturesque town that after settling there about eight years after painting the present work, He tried to persuade his friend Monet to join him: "Moret is just two hours journey from Paris, and has plenty of places to let at six hundred to a thousand francs. There is a market once a week, a pretty church, and beautiful scenery round about. If you were thinking of moving, why not come and see?" (quoted in ibid., p. 184). Moret also provided Sisley with a rich array of landscape motifs, from the medieval church and the Porte de Bourgogne, to the stately avenues of poplars and the humble wash-houses on the banks of the Loing.