Watering Place at Marly

In 1875 Alfred Sisley moved to the village of Marly-le-Roi, where in the 1600s King Louis XIV had built an elegant country retreat. The artist’s home on the rue de l’Abreuvoir flanked the pool, or “watering place,” featured on the left of this canvas. The pool was all that remained of the water gardens that had been part of the king’s park.

Sisley remained faithful to landscape subjects throughout his career, spending most of his life painting in the villages along the Seine River, in the region referred to as the cradle of Impressionism.