ノワジー・ル・ロワの鐘楼、秋

Sisley painted this in the autumn of 1874, a few months after the first Impressionist exhibition had opened in Paris that April and drawn more mockery than sales. He had just come back from a trip to England paid for by Jean-Baptiste Faure, a celebrated opera singer who was one of the few people then buying this kind of work. Back in France he settled near the village of Noisy-le-Roi, between Versailles and the Forest of Marly, and painted its church tower under a thin autumn light. Sisley stayed with landscape his whole life while the others drifted toward figures and city scenes, tracking the same quiet weather across the seasons. Within weeks of finishing this he moved for good to nearby Marly-le-Roi.