View of Marly-le-Roi from Coeur-Volant

Topography: In 1876, Sisley and his family were established in Marly-le-Roi, which is located on a hillside above the small port of Marly, on the Seine near Paris. The town had grown up to support the Château de Marly, a palace that Louis XIV had built high above the river, and while the buildings had been torn down in 1806, what had been an enormous park with waterworks remained. Near the entrance to the former royal property is Coeur-Volant (named for a street which climbs the opposite side of the hill from the neighboring village of Louveciennes), which offers this distant view. The house and garden are two separate properties divided by a road. The small, elaborately decorated chalet-style building with a balcony would have been quite new at the time. Chairs and potted plants are set out on the gravel in front, where a small child in a smock amuses himself with a wheelbarrow and a hobbyhorse and wagon.

The Painting: In the elaborate formal garden to the right, bedding plants are laid out in swathes of blue and lavender with pathways between. The plantings were set out on an extensive property which had been assembled not long before by a local entrepreneur, Grégoire Le Lubez, and was then owned by Robert Le Lubez, an amateur singer and a patron of contemporary composers Charles-François Gounod and Camile Saint-Saëns.[1] The leafless tree at the center of a round flower bed and the yellow foliage behind suggest that the season is late autumn. Other than the colors used for the house, the palette comprises a wide variety of pastel tones applied in innumerable small, variegated strokes. The sky, lighter toward the horizon, is loosely indicated in various soft blues with wisps of white cloud.

Provenance: This work, representing an atypical subject for Sisley, has been identified as the painting included in the third Impressionist exhibition of 1877, as Le Chalet: gelée blanche (The Chalet: Hard Frost), lent by Monsieur H., which was sold in 1878, as Chalet dans un parc (Chalet in a Park), by the Impressionist enthusiast Ernest Hoschedé. (See Berson 1996.)

Katharine Baetjer 2020

[1] In 1979, Anne Wagner wrote from the Department of European Paintings to the mayor of Louveciennes concerning the subject, which was then unidentified. Responses and several photographs were provided by the deputy mayor, Jacques G. Läy, and his wife Monique. The hamlet is Coeur-Volant, on the border between Marly-le-Roi and Louveciennes. An extensive garden still exists there. The view is little changed.

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Sisley.76

possibly Ernest Hoschedé, Paris (by 1877–78; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 5–6, 1878, no. 88, "Châlet dans un parc," for Fr 109); [Charles F. Haseltine, Philadelphia, until 1892; sold through Knoedler, New York, on March 14 or 15 to Durand-Ruel]; [Durand-Ruel, New York, 1892; sold on April 8 to Palmer]; Potter Palmer, Chicago (1892–94; sold on November 23 to Durand-Ruel); [Durand-Ruel, New York, 1894–1928 ; sold on November 24 to de Groot]; Adelaide Milton de Groot, New York (1928–d. 1967; on loan to The Met, 1936)

Paris. 6, rue le Peletier. "3e exposition de peinture [3rd Impressionist exhibition]," April 1877, no. 211 (as "Le Chalet; gelée blanche," lent by M. H . . . , possibly this picture).

Saint Louis Exposition and Music Hall Association. "Twelfth Annual Exhibition," 1895, no. 501 (as "View at Louvecennes" [sic]).

New York. Durand-Ruel. "Works of Alfred Sisley," February 27–March 15, 1899, no. 24.

New York. Durand-Ruel. "Exhibition of Paintings by Sisley," April 10–27, 1912, no. 6.

New York. Durand-Ruel. "Sisley," November 28–December 12, 1914, no. 9 [see Daulte 1959].

New York. Durand-Ruel. "Sisley," March 24–April 7, 1917, no. 22 [see Daulte 1959].

New York. Durand-Ruel. "Exhibition of Paintings by Alfred Sisley (1840–1899)," January 8–22, 1921, no. 13.

New York. Durand-Ruel Galleries. "Exhibition of Paintings by Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley," February 18–March 1925, no. 13 (as "Vue de Louveciennes").

New York. Durand-Ruel Galleries. "Exhibition of Paintings by Alfred Sisley, 1839–1899," April 19–May 3, 1927, no. 9 (as "Vue de Louveciennes").

New York. Perls Galleries. "Masterpieces from the Collection of Adelaide Milton de Groot," April 14–May 3, 1958, no. 4 (as "La Maison de l'Artiste à Louveciennes").

Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts. "Masterpieces from the Adelaide Milton de Groot Collection," December 2, 1958–March 1, 1959, no. 36 (as "The Artist's House at Louveciennes").

Hanover, N.H. Hopkins Art Center, Dartmouth College. "Impressionism, 1865–1885," November 1–December 1962, no catalogue?

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paintings from Private Collections: Summer Loan Exhibition," July 12–September 2, 1963, no. 73 (lent by Adelaide Milton de Groot).

New York. Wildenstein. "Olympia's Progeny," October 28–November 27, 1965, no. 16 (as "Vue de Louveciennes," lent by Adelaide de Groot).

New York. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. "Sisley," October 27–December 3, 1966, no. 27 (lent by Adelaide Milton de Groot).

Tokyo National Museum. "Treasured Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," August 10–October 1, 1972, no. 95.

Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. "Treasured Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 8–November 26, 1972, no. 95.

Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art. "Landscape Painting in the East and West," April 19–June 1, 1986, no. 12 (as "View of Morly-le-Roi [sic] from Coeur-Volant").

Kobe City Museum. "Landscape Painting in the East and West," June 7–July 13, 1986, no. 12.

Yokohama Museum of Art. "Treasures from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: French Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century," March 25–June 4, 1989, no. 93 (as "View of Marly-le-Roi from Cœur-Volant").

Fort Lauderdale. Museum of Art. "Corot to Cézanne: 19th Century French Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," December 22, 1992–April 11, 1993, no catalogue.

London. Hayward Gallery. "Landscapes of France: Impressionism and its Rivals," May 18–August 28, 1995, no. 85.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Landscapes of France: Impressionism and its Rivals," October 4, 1995–January 14, 1996, no. 85.

Martigny. Fondation Pierre Gianadda. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture européenne," June 23–November 12, 2006, no. 45.

Barcelona. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. "Grandes maestros de la pintura europea de The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nueva York: De El Greco a Cézanne," December 1, 2006–March 4, 2007, no. 37.

Sara Hallowell. Letter to Bertha Palmer. September 12, 1892 [see Johnston 1992], probably refers to her oversight of this Sisley painting, under her care, upon its arrival in New York.

Twelfth Annual Exhibition. Exh. cat., Saint Louis Exposition and Music Hall Association. St. Louis, 1895, pp. 55, 118, no. 501, ill.

Harry B. Wehle. "A Loan of Paintings." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 31 (October 1936), p. 209.

François Daulte. Alfred Sisley: Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint. Lausanne, 1959, unpaginated, no. 208, ill.

Kermit S[wiler]. Champa. Olympia's Progeny. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 1965, unpaginated, no. 16, ill.

Jacques G. Laÿ. Letter to Anne Wagner. October 16, 1979, comments that this was painted in the hamlet of Coeur-Volant, situated on the edge of Louveciennes and Marly-le-Roi.

Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 154–55, 253, ill. (color), mentions that Sisley set up his easel in a garden on the property of Robert Le Lubez in the hamlet of Coeur-Volant to paint this view.

William R. Johnston in Alfred Sisley. Ed. MaryAnne Stevens. Exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London. New Haven, 1992, pp. 66, 69.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 463, ill.

Ruth Berson, ed. "Documentation: Volume I, Reviews and Volume II, Exhibited Works." The New Painting: Impressionism 1874–1886. San Francisco, 1996, vol. 2, p. 83, no. III-211, ill. p. 102, notes that it may have been in the Hoschedé sale of 1878.

Clare A. P. Willsdon. In the Gardens of Impressionism. New York, 2004, pp. 27–28, 147, 280, colorpl. 22.

Kathryn Calley Galitz in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture européenne. Exh. cat., Fondation Pierre Gianadda. Martigny, 2006, pp. 234–36, no. 45, ill. (color) [Catalan ed., Barcelona, 2006, pp. 128–29, no. 37, ill. (color)], mentions its possible inclusion in the 3rd Impressionist exhibition of 1877.

Rebecca A. Rabinow in Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 133, 307, no. 122, ill. (color and black and white).

Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 441, no. 373, ill. pp. 379, 441 (color).

Sylvie Brame and François Lorenceau. Alfred Sisley: Catalogue critique des peintures et des pastels. Lausanne, 2021, pp. 112, 434, 549, no. 221, ill. (color), as "vue sur Marly-le-Roi depuis le Coeur-Volant à Louveciennes.