La inundación en Port-Marly

In the spring of 1876 the Seine burst its banks and flooded the little town of Port-Marly, west of Paris, and Alfred Sisley went out to paint it. He made a whole series there, about six canvases, returning again and again to the same corner. There is no drama in them. A boat glides where the street should be, the flooded houses double themselves in the still surface, and the wide grey sky does most of the work. Sisley was an Impressionist who stayed poorer and less noticed than his friends Monet and Renoir. On the left of the scene, its feet in the water, stands a wine merchant's shop with the name of its patron saint, Saint Nicholas, painted over the door.