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Artist or Maker: Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)
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Provenance: François Depeaux, Paris; sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 25 April 1901 (FFr. 8,500).
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, by whom acquired at the above sale.
Adolphe Tavernier, Paris; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 15 April 1907, lot 47 (FFr 6,200).
Léon Orosdi, Paris; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 25 May 1923, lot 66 (FFr. 30,000).
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 8 December 1999, lot 14.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
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Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Sisley, May - September 1957, no. 58.
Bern, Kunstmuseum, Alfred Sisley, February - April 1958, no. 85.
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Alfred Sisley, February - March 1971, no. 48 (illustrated).
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Literature: F. Daulte, Alfred Sisley, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Lausanne, 1959, no. 758 (illustrated).
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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE FAMILY TRUST
In June 1880, Emile Zola withdrew his support from the réfusés, accusing them of having failed in their artistic mission and betraying their original ambitions. Renoir and Pissarro responded to his criticism by reconsidering the very roots of their aesthetic credo, while Sisley proclaimed his faith in the aims of impressionism with an even stronger conviction. The discovery of the area around Veneux-Nadon and Moret-sur-Loing was crucial in this critical phase of his career, and opened the way to the more mature canvases of the early 1890s, of which Le pont de Moret is an outstanding example.
He settled permanently in Moret in 1889, and in 1891 he moved with his family to his last home at 19 rue Montmartre. A more stable personal situation and a deeper awareness of the coutryside, are at the basis of his masterfully structured canvases at the beginning of the new decade. Having been involved in two major international exhibitions - with Les XX in Brussels, and with Monet and Renoir at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Boston - Sisley spent the spring and summer of 1891 in Moret, focussing on his cherished motifs on the shores of the Loing.
The provenance of Le pont de Moret is distinguished. The oil was originally acquired by François Depeaux (1853-1920), the Rouen industrialist who was Sisley's most prominent patron in the 1880s and 1890s. Significantly, in the same years Depeaux was also sponsoring Monet: he entertained both artists on his estate at Le Mesnil-Esnard, saw them both in London, and, in 1900, invited Monet's son Michel to his Swansea house, where Sisley had worked three years before.
Later, in 1907, the oil was bought by Léon Orosdi, a passionate collector of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pictures with a notable collection of Sisleys. '... L'Hôtel de la rue Cimarosa, qu'il avait fait construire pour lui et les siens, était rempli d'excellente peinture, et même de la meilleure. Le seuil franchi, on était sollicité par Sisley, car Sisley, plus que tout autre, était le maître d'élection de cette demeure qu'il embellissait de son charmant génie. La collection d'oeuvres modernes que Léon Orosdi avait assemblé au cours de trente années, c'était Sisley qui en constituait le noyau. Il retenait ici un Claude Monet, là un Pissarro, par ailleurs un Courbet, un Ribot, un Forain, mais le maître de Moret restait son idéal...' (H. Lapauze, Alfred Sisley, Paris, 1971, p. 1).
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis
