ALFRED SISLEY | Les Hautes eaux à Moret-sur-Loing

Madame Émile Michaut, Paris

Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on January 3, 1903)

Paul Rosenberg & Co., Paris & New York (acquired from the above on January 13, 1903)

Alexandre Louis Philippe Marie Berthier, Fourth Prince of Wagram, France 

Jos Hessel, France 

Durand-Ruel, New York & Paris (acquired from the above in 1916)

Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Meeker, Chicago (acquired from the above on April 28, 1917)

Arthur Meeker, Jr., Chicago (by descent from the above)

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York

Mr. & Mrs. Albert J. Dreitzer, New York (acquired by 1966 and sold: Sotheby’s, New York, November 13, 1985, lot 5)

Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Cent tableaux par Boudin, Jongkind, Lépine, Sisley, 1903, no. 87 

New York, Wildenstein & Co., Sisley, 1966, no. 40, illustrated in the catalogue

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Summer Loan Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture from Private Collections, 1966, no. 167

François Daulte, Alfred Sisley. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Lausanne, 1959, no. 337, illustrated n.p.

Completed in 1879, Les Hautes eaux à Moret-sur-Loing is among the first works Sisley painted in the sleepy, charming town outside of Paris that preoccupied Sisley at the height of his career. Sisley spent most of his final two decades living in and around Moret and was buried in the village upon his death in 1899. In an 1881 letter to Monet, Sisley described his attraction to the town: “Moret is two hours’ journey from Paris, and has plenty of space to rent at 600 to 1,000 francs. There is a market once a week, a pretty church, and a beautiful scenery around it. If you were thinking of moving, why not come and see?”
Moret-sur-Loing suited Sisley’s artistic inclinations and meditative, pure style of landscape Impressionism; a sparsely populated village along the poplar-lined Loing and Seine rivers with a scattering of neo-Gothic architecture and a full range of seasons, Moret-sur-Loing provided Sisley with a wealth of natural variety to explore through painting (see fig. 1). Reflecting on the inspiration he draws from the French village, Sisley wrote: “It is in Moret, amid this dense nature, with its tall poplars and the beautiful transparent, changing waters of the Loing…that my art has undoubtedly developed most…I will never really leave this place that is so picturesque” (Letter from Alfred Sisley to Adolphe Tavernier, January 9, 1892). The present work, with the light hitting the rising waters of the Loing, captures this spirit via a calm, restrained meditation on light and water. Sisley “adhered throughout his career to the style of divided light and color, momentary effects of illumination, and an acute responsiveness to the atmosphere that are signature aspects of Impressionism. He dutifully painted en plein air in all manner of weather… in exhaustive detail, in all seasons, and under everchanging skies. On occasion he might address nature’s unpredictability… but there are few theatrics in this circumscribed art, simply an unwavering devotion to his beloved landscapes” (P.C. Sutton & B. Monnier, Alfred Sisley: Impressionist Master (exhibition catalogue), Greenwich, Connecticut, 2017, p. 18).



This work will be included in the new edition of the Catalogue Raisonné of Alfred Sisley by François Daulte now being prepared by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau for the Comité Alfred Sisley.