Le Passeur de l'Île de la Loge, inondation

In the last weeks of 1872 the Seine west of Paris rose and flooded, cresting in mid-December. Sisley went out into it and painted the water where it had swallowed the riverbank, a ferry landing on the Ile de la Loge half under the grey swell. He was drawn to floods and would return to the subject for years. This canvas has a small place in history. The dealer Durand-Ruel bought it that January for 200 francs, and in the spring of 1874 it hung in the very first Impressionist exhibition, the show where a group of little-known painters put up their work together and got themselves mocked and named. It carried the number 162 in the catalogue.