The Loing at Saint-Mammès

Far off along the horizon runs a long line of arches. That is the railway viaduct at Saint-Mammès, built between 1846 and 1848 to carry the line from Paris to Lyon over the Loing, some 530 metres of masonry with two cast-iron spans across the river itself. By 1882, when Sisley painted this, trains had been crossing it for more than 30 years, and he sets it into the view as calmly as the clouds.

Closer in, the river is a place of work. A big barge lies grounded against the bank, dwarfing the fishing boats near it, and people walk the towpath alongside, under a sky laid on in long overlapping strokes of white, pink and violet. In 1890 the canvas was bought from Durand-Ruel by Coquelin cadet, a comic actor of the Comédie-Française. The viaduct did not come through intact. In June 1940 French army engineers blew up its arch over the Loing, and after the war it was rebuilt in stone.