Vue de Montmartre depuis la Cité des Fleurs

Sisley painted this in the spring of 1869 from the window of his apartment at 27 Cité des Fleurs, in the Batignolles district on the northern edge of Paris. Just streets away, at the Café Guerbois, Manet and the younger painters who would soon be called Impressionists were meeting to argue about exactly this kind of picture. The word Impressionism did not exist yet, and neither did much of what you would expect on Montmartre today. The hill in the distance is still mostly green, dotted with low buildings, the ground in front open and half rural. Within two years the Franco-Prussian War would scatter this circle of friends. Sisley left the canvas with a painter friend, Rousselin, who later gave it to Grenoble.