Fishermen in Poissy

In 1882 Claude Monet was living in Poissy, a town on the Seine just west of Paris, and he was not happy there. He had washed up in it almost by accident after leaving Vetheuil, money was tight, and that winter the river flooded badly. He found little in the town itself worth painting, so he turned, as he usually did, to the water. Here fishermen work the Seine under a broad, shifting sky, the current and its reflections carrying most of the interest. Within the year he moved downriver to a village called Giverny, where he would live and paint for the rest of his life.