- 129
Alfred Sisley
Estimate
400,000 - 600,000 USD
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Description
- Alfred Sisley
- Dans le Bois au Printemps
Signed Sisley (lower left)
- Oil on canvas
- 21 5/8 by 29 in.
- 54 by 73.6 cm
Provenance
Léon Payen, Paris (sold: Hôtel Drouot, Collection de Léon Payen, Paris, June 29-30, 1916, no. 106)
Hotel Drouot, Paris, June 16, 1938
Grégoire Lampol, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collection
J.K. Thannhauser, New York (by 1955)
Sam Porter Fine Arts, Great Neck, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owners, February 1996
Exhibited
San Francisco Museum of Art, United Nations, 1955
Art Center in La Jolla, Great French Paintings: 1870-1910, 1956
Art Center in La Jolla, Great French Paintings: 1870-1910, 1956
Literature
François Daulte, Alfred Sisley, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Lausanne, 1959, no. 636, illustrated
Catalogue Note
Sylvie Patin writes, "Sisley's art did not stand still during his last two decades, and modifications to his technique, palette and approach to subject matter were certainly introduced. . . .As a pure landscape painter, Sisley's name was most frequently linked by critics to that of Monet, especially from 1880s onwards. In part this was provoked by an interest in similar themes: (such as) haystacks. . ." (Sylvie Patin, Alfred Sisley, exhibition catalogue, New Haven and London, 1992, pp. 183-84).
The subject of hay or grain stacks did not loom as large in Sisley's oeuvre as it did for Monet, and there are notable differences in how the artists treated the same subject. In several of Sisley's compositions, the stacks are a small presence in the distance of the landscape--they take on no more significance than the trees and rolling landscape, and in each case he includes figures which Monet has not done. In the present work, the stack is a prominent element; the short shadow cast by the haystack and the radiant blue of the sky suggest the high position of the sun overhead.
Unlike Monet, Sisley did not venture far in seeking his motifs. He remained centered in the region of Saint-Mammès, to the north of Moret, at the point where the Loing river flows into the Seine. Though a leading figure of the Impressionist movement along with Monet, Pissarro and Renoir, Sisley did not enjoy the same degree of material success and, consequently, was unable to travel widely. But true to his artistic origins, Sisley found that the ever changing light and atmosphereic effects on his native countryside could provide all the variety he needed to continue a vigorous production.
The subject of hay or grain stacks did not loom as large in Sisley's oeuvre as it did for Monet, and there are notable differences in how the artists treated the same subject. In several of Sisley's compositions, the stacks are a small presence in the distance of the landscape--they take on no more significance than the trees and rolling landscape, and in each case he includes figures which Monet has not done. In the present work, the stack is a prominent element; the short shadow cast by the haystack and the radiant blue of the sky suggest the high position of the sun overhead.
Unlike Monet, Sisley did not venture far in seeking his motifs. He remained centered in the region of Saint-Mammès, to the north of Moret, at the point where the Loing river flows into the Seine. Though a leading figure of the Impressionist movement along with Monet, Pissarro and Renoir, Sisley did not enjoy the same degree of material success and, consequently, was unable to travel widely. But true to his artistic origins, Sisley found that the ever changing light and atmosphereic effects on his native countryside could provide all the variety he needed to continue a vigorous production.