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Lot Essay
In the first weeks of 1875, Sisley and his family moved from Louveciennes to nearby Marly-le-Roi, settling at 2, rue de l'Abreuvoir. Less than twenty kilometers west of Paris in the lush valley of the Seine, Marly had once been the favorite country retreat of Louis XIV. Although the royal château had been destroyed during the Revolution, the massive Baroque garden and the great aquatic system for supplying its fountains remained intact, poetic vestiges of the ancien régime. The landscape in and around Marly proved to be a rich source of artistic inspiration for Sisley. Richard Shone has written, "The lie of the land and its network of roads provided a consistent backdrop to the minutiae of walls and shutters, passers-by, birds in the snow, geraniums in a window-box. He was an indefatigable walker and must have become a familiar figure in every quarter of the district, setting up his easel in the streets and paths of the village, under the high walls of the Parc de Marly, by the main road, or in the place de l'Abreuvoir" (Sisley, New York, 1992, p. 85). Shone has praised the years that Sisley spent at Marly as "the period of some of his greatest landscapes" (ibid., p. 85), while Christopher Lloyd has written, "During the years when Sisley lived in Marly-le-Roi and Sèvres, he painted some of the finest pictures in his oeuvre" (Alfred Sisley, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1992, p. 149).
The present painting shows the picturesque route de Versailles, which had been laid out in the late 17th century as a royal road for carriages traveling from Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the Château de Marly and on to Versailles. The road begins near the Seine at Port-Marly and climbs uphill to Marly-le-Roi, where it intersects the rue de l'Abreuvoir just a short walk from Sisley's house; it continues to wind upward to Louveciennes, passing within a stone's throw of the artist's previous residence. Heavily traveled throughout the 19th century, the road was a popular motif for the Impressionist painters, especially for Pissarro, who lived at 22, route de Versailles at Louveciennes between 1869 and 1872. Richard Brettell has written, "There are Impressionist representations of virtually all aspects of the road: houses, trees, rural inns, and travelers seen from every imaginable viewpoint in every season and at many times of day. Indeed, the route de Versailles is to the Impressionist iconography of roads what the Seine is to its iconography of rivers" (A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984, p. 104).
Sisley opted in the present canvas to depict a peaceful stretch of the route de Versailles on the outskirts of Marly-le-Roi, the high stone wall on the left likely marking the edge of the Parc de Marly. The plunging diagonal of the road--one of Sisley's favorite formal devices during this period--provides the focal point for the tightly ordered composition, endowing the scene with instant structure and leading the eye slowly into depth. The converging banks of trees to either side of the road emphasize its gentle recession. Several pedestrians and a horse-drawn carriage travel along the wide path, reflecting the larger Impressionist project of representing human movement through the Seine valley. "Rivers, roads, and rails, with their appropriate modes of transport, became the major 'modern' motifs in landscape painting in the second half of the century," Scott Schaefer has explained (ibid., p. 139). The scene was painted on a clear day in late spring or summer, the sunlight flickering over the trees in full leaf. The entire upper half of the canvas is given over to the rendering of the cloud-flecked, pink-tinged sky, lending breadth to the composition and showcasing Sisley's mastery of Impressionist technique.
The first owner of Route de Versailles was the critic Adolphe Tavernier, one of Sisley's closest friends and most ardent supporters during the 1890s. At Sisley's funeral in 1899, Tavernier gave a moving oration, describing 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 exh. cat., op. cit., 1992, p. 28).
The present painting shows the picturesque route de Versailles, which had been laid out in the late 17th century as a royal road for carriages traveling from Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the Château de Marly and on to Versailles. The road begins near the Seine at Port-Marly and climbs uphill to Marly-le-Roi, where it intersects the rue de l'Abreuvoir just a short walk from Sisley's house; it continues to wind upward to Louveciennes, passing within a stone's throw of the artist's previous residence. Heavily traveled throughout the 19th century, the road was a popular motif for the Impressionist painters, especially for Pissarro, who lived at 22, route de Versailles at Louveciennes between 1869 and 1872. Richard Brettell has written, "There are Impressionist representations of virtually all aspects of the road: houses, trees, rural inns, and travelers seen from every imaginable viewpoint in every season and at many times of day. Indeed, the route de Versailles is to the Impressionist iconography of roads what the Seine is to its iconography of rivers" (A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984, p. 104).
Sisley opted in the present canvas to depict a peaceful stretch of the route de Versailles on the outskirts of Marly-le-Roi, the high stone wall on the left likely marking the edge of the Parc de Marly. The plunging diagonal of the road--one of Sisley's favorite formal devices during this period--provides the focal point for the tightly ordered composition, endowing the scene with instant structure and leading the eye slowly into depth. The converging banks of trees to either side of the road emphasize its gentle recession. Several pedestrians and a horse-drawn carriage travel along the wide path, reflecting the larger Impressionist project of representing human movement through the Seine valley. "Rivers, roads, and rails, with their appropriate modes of transport, became the major 'modern' motifs in landscape painting in the second half of the century," Scott Schaefer has explained (ibid., p. 139). The scene was painted on a clear day in late spring or summer, the sunlight flickering over the trees in full leaf. The entire upper half of the canvas is given over to the rendering of the cloud-flecked, pink-tinged sky, lending breadth to the composition and showcasing Sisley's mastery of Impressionist technique.
The first owner of Route de Versailles was the critic Adolphe Tavernier, one of Sisley's closest friends and most ardent supporters during the 1890s. At Sisley's funeral in 1899, Tavernier gave a moving oration, describing 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 exh. cat., op. cit., 1992, p. 28).