Alfred Sisley: Marly-le-Roi

"The View of Marly-le-Roi" by Alfred Sisley

"Shortly after his return from his extended visit to England in 1874, Alfred Sisley and his family moved from the hillside village of Louveciennes to Marly-le-Roi, a riverside village in the environs of Paris. Here the financial difficulties which had dogged him for years persisted."

[There was much to interest the painter here. Even though the royal palace at Marly-le-Roi had been destroyed at the time of the French Revolution, his pictures in and around the old royal hunting park there were imbued with a sense of royal presence and past grandeur. There were the verdant fields around the town, and he also created several paintings of the floods experienced there over the years.]

"In March 1875 Sisley arranged, with Renoir, Monet and others, a public auction of their work in Paris, in the hope of finding buyers from outside the usual group of exhibition-visiting art lovers. The auction at the Hotel Drouot provoked public demonstrations of disapproval at the work of the 'Impressionists'. Although 21 of Sisley's pictures were sold, the prices were too low - an average of 100 francs a picture - to do much to relieve his difficulties. Still, painting remained the only activity of importance in his life."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Works of Sisley" by Janice Anderson.)