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Lot Essay
Sisley's Vieille Chaumière aux Sablons, environs de Veneux-Nadon depicts a charming rural stone home near Veneaux-les-Sablons. The artist resided in that village, about sixty kilometers from the capital city, between 1883 and 1889, and he frequently painted the nearby Rivers Seine and Loing and the picturesque structures in the surrounding region. The present work was executed circa 1883, soon after the seventh Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1882. There, Sisley's landscape paintings had received mixed reviews from contemporary critics. Jean de Nivelle of Le Soleil disparaged the artist for "his peculiar habit of deliberately sticking nonsense right next to something good" while Joris-Karl Huysman, writing for L'art moderne, praised Sisley for being "one of the first go directly to nature, to dare heed her, and to try to remain faithful to the sensations he feels before her" (quoted in The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874-1886, exh. cat., Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., p. 418).
Undaunted by his critics, Sisley continued to record his atmospheric impressions of the rural landscape, using pure pigments and a dazzling brushwork. Sisley's Vieille Chaumière aux Sablons, environs de Veneux-Nadon exemplifies these formal virtues. In this tripartite composition, Sisley devoted a third of the space of the canvas to the flickering grass, a third to the buildings, and a third to the bright blue sky. For this artist, however, the sky was just as worthy of careful study as any of the other elements of the landscape. As he once famously declared,
"The sky is not simply a background; its planes give depth (for the sky has planes, as well as solid ground), and the shapes of clouds give movement to a picture. What is more beautiful indeed than the summer sky, with its wispy clouds idly floating across the blue? What movement and grace! Don't you agree? They are like waves on the sea; one is uplifted and carried away" (quoted in Sisley, New York, 1966, n.p.).
The Galerie Durand-Ruel et Cie. in Paris acquired this painting directly from the artist in December 1883, soon after it was painted. The Galerie sold the work to Catholina Lambert (1834-1923), a prominent American collector and silk manufacturer. Lambert owned the canvas until 1899, when he sold it back to Durand-Ruel. Lambert's collection comprised over 500 pictures, primarily Italian Renaissance masterpieces but also many modern Impressionist works like Sisley's Vieille Chaumière aux Sablons, environs de Veneux-Nadon. Lambert displayed these paintings in his home in New York City and his estate, known as Maplewood, in Paterson, New Jersey, which was near his silk factory. Lambert initially envisioned transforming his collection into a public art museum, as his contemporaries, J.P. Morgan and Henry Clay Frick, eventually did; however, Lambert encountered financial trouble in the early decades of the twentieth century and was forced to sell his collection at auction at the Plaza Hotel in 1916.
Undaunted by his critics, Sisley continued to record his atmospheric impressions of the rural landscape, using pure pigments and a dazzling brushwork. Sisley's Vieille Chaumière aux Sablons, environs de Veneux-Nadon exemplifies these formal virtues. In this tripartite composition, Sisley devoted a third of the space of the canvas to the flickering grass, a third to the buildings, and a third to the bright blue sky. For this artist, however, the sky was just as worthy of careful study as any of the other elements of the landscape. As he once famously declared,
"The sky is not simply a background; its planes give depth (for the sky has planes, as well as solid ground), and the shapes of clouds give movement to a picture. What is more beautiful indeed than the summer sky, with its wispy clouds idly floating across the blue? What movement and grace! Don't you agree? They are like waves on the sea; one is uplifted and carried away" (quoted in Sisley, New York, 1966, n.p.).
The Galerie Durand-Ruel et Cie. in Paris acquired this painting directly from the artist in December 1883, soon after it was painted. The Galerie sold the work to Catholina Lambert (1834-1923), a prominent American collector and silk manufacturer. Lambert owned the canvas until 1899, when he sold it back to Durand-Ruel. Lambert's collection comprised over 500 pictures, primarily Italian Renaissance masterpieces but also many modern Impressionist works like Sisley's Vieille Chaumière aux Sablons, environs de Veneux-Nadon. Lambert displayed these paintings in his home in New York City and his estate, known as Maplewood, in Paterson, New Jersey, which was near his silk factory. Lambert initially envisioned transforming his collection into a public art museum, as his contemporaries, J.P. Morgan and Henry Clay Frick, eventually did; however, Lambert encountered financial trouble in the early decades of the twentieth century and was forced to sell his collection at auction at the Plaza Hotel in 1916.