Il giardino delle Tuileries, pomeriggio d'inverno

By 1899 Pissarro's eyes could no longer stand painting outdoors. A chronic infection had driven the old Impressionist, once devoted to open fields, to work from behind glass. That January he rented rooms on the rue de Rivoli looking straight onto the Tuileries, and he painted the garden over and over through the seasons and weather. This is a grey winter afternoon, the trees bare, the paths nearly empty. On the far skyline the twin spires of the church of Sainte-Clotilde rise above the rooftops. He was 68 and had about four years left to live. That same winter he lost his friend, the painter Alfred Sisley, and gave one of these Tuileries views to Sisley's family to help them.