Terms and conditions of use
The Loing and the slopes of Saint-Nicaise - February afternoon
(Le Loing et le coteau de Saint-Nicaise - après-midi de février)
1890
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 60.0 × 73.0 cm
- Inscription
- inscribed in red paint l.l.: Sisley. 90.
- Accession Number
- 453-4
- Department
- International Painting
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1938
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited - Gallery location
- Late 19th & early 20th Century Paintings & Decorative Arts Gallery
Level 2, NGV International - About this work
-
‘Every picture’, wrote Alfred Sisley in 1893, ‘shows a spot with which the artist himself has fallen in love’. The subject of this painting is a calm stretch of the Loing River outside the historic township of Moretsur-Loing, where Sisley spent the last decade of his life. This particular area, with its gently sloping hills, limestone embankment and simple buildings, was painted by the artist four times in 1890. Sisley often executed multiple paintings of a single location, on each occasion varying the viewing angle slightly, so that the individual canvases presented different perspectives on the one scene. These works, which were not necessarily intended to be viewed together in a sequence, exemplify the artist’s programmatic approach to visually plotting the distinctive features of a given location and exploring the relationships between them.
Sisley and his fellow Impressionists chose to work in this way not only because of the different perspectives afforded by this strategy, but also because working ‘in multiple’ enabled a close examination of the effects of changing light, and atmospheric conditions, upon a particular subject. In his paintings of Saint-Nicaise, Sisley investigated the seasonal changes in the light falling upon this riverside landscape.
- Subjects (general)
- Landscapes
- Subjects (specific)
- afternoon France (nation) Loing (river) Mesnil-Saint-Nicaise (inhabited place) reflections (perceived properties) rivers sky winter
- Movements
- Impressionism
- Provenance
- Sold by the artist to Charles Ephrussi (1849–1905) collection of Theodore Reinach (1860–1928), Savoie region and Villa Kerylos, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, before 1928 by descent to Gabrielle Reinach  (1889–1970, 2nd daughter of first marriage), from 1928 with Wildenstein & Co., (dealer), London, by 1937 purchased from Wildenstein & Co. for the Felton Bequest on the advice of Sir Sydney Cockerell, 1937.
