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Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley (30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) painter who was one of the creators of French Impressionism, who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air (i.e., outdoors). He deviated into figure painting only rarely and, unlike Pierre Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro, found that Impressionism fulfilled his artistic needs.
Sisley was born in Paris to affluent British parents. His father, William Sisley, was in the silk business, and his mother, Felicia Sell, was a cultivated music connoisseur. In 1857, at the age of 18, Alfred Sisley was sent to London to study for a career in business, but he abandoned it after four years and returned to Paris in 1861. Sisley began painting as an amateur, from 1862, he studied at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts within the atelier of Swiss artist Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre where he began his association with Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Jean-Frédéric Bazille. Together they would paint landscapes en plein air rather than in the studio, in order to capture the transient effects of sunlight realistically. This approach, innovative at the time, resulted in paintings more colourful and more broadly painted than the public was accustomed to seeing.
In 1866, Sisley began a relationship with Eugénie Lescouezec (1834–1898; usually known as Marie Lescouezec), a Breton living in Paris. The couple had two children: son Pierre (born 1867) and daughter Jeanne (1869). At the time, Sisley lived not far from Avenue de Clichy and the Café Guerbois, the gathering-place of many Parisian painters.
In 1868, his paintings were accepted at the Salon, but the exhibition did not bring him financial or critical success; nor did subsequent exhibitions.
The Franco-German War of 1870–71 brought financial ruin to the Sisley family and caused Sisley to flee temporarily to London. At this period of crisis he decided to make painting his full-time career. The rest of his life was a constant struggle against poverty, as his paintings did not rise significantly in monetary value until after his death. Occasionally, however, Sisley would be backed by patrons, and this allowed him, among other things, to make a few brief trips to Britain. The first of these occurred in 1874, after the first independent Impressionist exhibition. The result of a few months spent near London was a series of nearly twenty paintings of the Upper Thames near Molesey, which was later described by art historian Kenneth Clark as “a perfect moment of Impressionism.”
Until 1880, Sisley lived and worked in the country west of Paris; then he and his family moved to a small village near Moret-sur-Loing, close to the forest of Fontainebleau, where the painters of the Barbizon school had worked earlier in the century. Here, as art historian Anne Poulet has said, “the gentle landscapes with their constantly changing atmosphere were perfectly attuned to his talents. Unlike Monet, he never sought the drama of the rampaging ocean or the brilliantly colored scenery of the Côte d’Azur.”
Sisley was essentially a landscape painter. His works can be distinguished from those of his colleagues by their softly harmonious values. His early style was much influenced by Camille Corot, and his restricted and delicate palette continued to reflect something of Corot’s silvery tonalities. His snowscapes are particularly effective. Much of his best and most spontaneous work was done in the period 1872–80 in the neighbourhood of Paris, at Marly, Louveciennes, Bougival, Sèvres, Saint-Cloud, and Meudon, at a time when he was in close touch with Monet.
He was inspired by the style and subject matter of previous modern painters Camille Pissarro and Edouard Manet. Among the Impressionists, Sisley has been overshadowed by Monet, whose work his resembles in style and subject matter, although Sisley’s effects are more subdued.
In 1881, Sisley made a second brief voyage to Great Britain.
In 1897, Sisley and his partner visited Britain again, and were finally married in Wales at Cardiff Register Office on 5 August. They stayed at Penarth, where Sisley painted at least six oils of the sea and the cliffs. In mid-August they moved to the Osborne Hotel at Langland Bay on the Gower Peninsula, where he produced at least eleven oil paintings in and around Langland Bay and Rotherslade (then called Lady’s Cove). They returned to France in October. This was Sisley’s last voyage to his ancestral homeland.
The following year Sisley applied for French citizenship, but was refused. A second application was made and supported by a police report, but illness intervened, and Sisley remained a British national until his death.
He died on 29 January 1899 of throat cancer in Moret-sur-Loing at the age of 59, a few months after the death of his wife. His body was buried with that of his wife at Moret-sur-Loing Cemetery.
Among Sisley’s best-known works are Street in Moret and Sand Heaps, both owned by the Art Institute of Chicago, and The Bridge at Moret-sur-Loing, shown at Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Allée des peupliers de Moret (The Lane of Poplars at Moret) has been stolen three times from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nice. Sisley produced some 900 oil paintings, some 100 pastels and many other drawings.
In March 2017, Sisley’s painting Effet de neige à Louveciennes (1874) achieved $9,064,733 at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in London, setting the record price paid for a work by the artist.
Read moreShowing 201–300 of 419 results
L’Abreuvoir de Marly-le-Roi 1875
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00On the Shores of Loing
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00The Loing River in Moret- the Laundry Boat 1890
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Banks of the Loing Near Moret
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Bridge at Moret-sur-Loing 1891
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00La Route de Gennevilliers
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Été à Moret
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00The Loing at Saint-Mammès 1882
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Le lavoir à Bougival, 1877
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Factory at Sevres
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Le Canal Saint, Martin, Paris
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Langland Bay, 1897
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Le Pont de St. Cloud
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Chaumière en Normandie 1894
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Le Château de la Croix-Blanche à Saint Mammes
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00The Bridge of Moret, Evening, 1884
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00The Channel of Loing tow Path 1882
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Les Bords Du Loing à Moret 1886
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00The Loing at Saint-Mammès 1885
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Autumn, Banks of the Seine Near Bougival
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Banks of the Loing River, 1885
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Unloading Barges at Billancourt (1877)
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Bank of the Seine in Autumn, 1876
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Bords de Rivière
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Lavandières Près de Champagne
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Sèvres Bridge (Le Pont de Sèvres)
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00The Seine at Billancourt 1877
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00La Seine à la Bouille, coup de vent
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00La Seine au Point Du Jour
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Bords Du Loing
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Bourse D’affrètement de La Batellerie, Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Barges at Saint Mammès 1885
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Moret Sur Loing
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Bord Du Loing à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Fog, Voisins
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Barges on the Loing at Saint Mammes 1885
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Evening in Moret, End of October 1888
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Bords de La Seine à La Roche, Guyon
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Morning at Saint Mammes, 1884
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Boats on Repair at Saint Mammes, 1880
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Barges à Saint-Mammès 1884
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Canal Du Loing à Saint-Mammès 1885
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Canal Du Loing
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Le Barrage de Saint Mammes
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Le Canal Du Loing à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Le Loing à Saint-Mammès 1884
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00Les Oies à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $249.00Saint-Mammès, Loing Canal 1885
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00The Canal at Saint-Mammès 1885
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Confluent de La Seine et Du Loing
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Saint Mammès, Loing Canal
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $299.00The Loing’s Canal
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $299.00Le Loing à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Saint Mammès, Le Soir
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00The Lock of Saint Mammès (1885)
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00River Banks at Saint-Mammes 1884
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Saint Mammès, Construction de Bateaux
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $299.00La Seine à Bougival
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00The Bridge at Saint-Mammès 1881
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Les Oies à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00The Thames at Hampton Court 1874
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $299.00Paysage Près de Moret
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Les Bords Du Loing à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Chantier à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Seine at Bougival 1873
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $299.00Chemin des Prés à Sèvres
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Aqueduct at Marly
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Chemin Près Du Parc de Courances
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $309.00Haystacks
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Haystacks at Moret, Morning (1891)
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Le Parc à Sèvres
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Le Lavoir de Billancourt, 1879
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Jour de Brouillard à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Countryside Near Moret
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Boats at the Lock at Bougival
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Children Playing in the Fields
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $299.00La Berge à Saint Mammès
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00La Route de Verrières
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00L’abreuvoir de Marly
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Laundresses at the River Bank 1884
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Le Givre à Veneux 1880
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Drying, Nets
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $329.00Le Barrage de La Machine à Marly
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $299.00Bords de Seine à Bougival
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $329.00Les Lilas Dans Mon Jardin 1892
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00My House at Moret 1892
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Les Hauteurs de Saint Mammès au Printemps
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Molesey Weir, Hampton Court
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Le Village de Champagne au Coucher Du Soleil, avril
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $299.00Les Bords Du Loing à Saint-Mammès 1884
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Les Pommiers en Fleurs
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $279.00Le Petit Bougival, 1874
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $289.00Moret-sur-Loing
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Rainy spring around Paris 1879
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Seine at Grenelle 1878
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $269.00Poplars on a River Bank
By Alfred SisleySizes starting at $259.00