Regatta at Hampton Court

Sisley crossed to England in July 1874 with his costs met by Jean-Baptiste Faure, the leading baritone at the Paris Opera, who collected Impressionist pictures and expected canvases in return. He based himself at East Molesey, on the Thames opposite Hampton Court, and stayed about four months. Nearly everything he painted there is the same reach of river above the lock, with its bridge, its weir and its boats. The regatta is the amateur one the local rowing club had been running each summer since 1867. He went home with around 16 canvases. This one stayed in Paris for the rest of the century, owned by the composer Emmanuel Chabrier until his death and sold out of his collection in 1896. Faure owned it from that year until he died in 1914.