The Road to Hampton Court

In the summer of 1874, just after the first Impressionist exhibition had opened and been mocked in Paris, Sisley crossed to England. The trip was paid for by Jean-Baptiste Faure, a celebrated opera baritone who collected the new painting, and Sisley spent about four months along the Thames west of London. Around Hampton Court and the village of Molesey he made some 17 canvases, this quiet road among them, working the ordinary English light on bridge, water and towpath. He was one of the few Impressionists fully at ease with plain landscape, no incident and no story, just the day itself. From the same weeks came his views of the rowing regatta at Molesey, an English sporting afternoon carried straight into Impressionist paint.