Le bois des Roches, Veneux-Nadon

He signed this canvas at the lower left and dated it 80, the year he moved his family to Veneux-Nadon, on the Seine near Moret-sur-Loing. Sisley stayed in that corner of the Loing valley for the rest of his life. The trees here are bare, a path runs along the bank with two small figures on it, and a boat sits out on the pale water.

The surprising part is the address. When the Musée d'Orsay opened in 1986 the Louvre handed over its paintings of this generation, and the Sisleys went across the river. This one did not. It belongs to the collection the Paris banker Victor Lyon and his wife Hélène gave to the Louvre in 1961, keeping the use of it in the meantime. The canvases arrived in 1977 and are shown together as a single donation.