Haystack on the Banks of the Loing

By 1891 Sisley had settled in Moret-sur-Loing, a medieval town southeast of Paris, and he painted its river and streets over and over in near poverty and near silence, largely forgotten by the buyers who chased his old colleagues. He made this haystack on the bank of the Loing that same year. It is worth remembering what else happened in 1891. In May, Monet hung fifteen of his grainstack paintings together at a Paris gallery, and they sold within days, making him rich and celebrated. Sisley, painting a very similar rural motif, sold almost nothing. Here the stack sits solid and plain by the slow green water, the light handled with the quiet care he gave the Loing for the last ten years of his life.