Saint-Mammès, Loing Canal

Sisley spent the last two decades of his life in the villages along the Seine and the Loing, and Saint-Mammès on the canal was among his favorite subjects. This 1885 canvas shows the waterway that linked the river valleys south of Paris, painted with the quiet, unforced observation that distinguished Sisley from his fellow Impressionists. Never as commercially successful as his peers, he remained the most single-mindedly devoted to pure landscape among the group’s original members.