''The Small Meadows in Spring, By'' (French ''Les Petits Prés au printemps, By'') is an 1881 painting by

Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedicatio ...

, on loan from

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in E ...

to the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

since 1997. The location it shows is now paved, but was then a wooded path along the left bank of the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plate ...

linking the villages of

Veneux-les-Sablons Veneux-les-Sablons () is a former commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Ile-de-France region in north-central France. On 1 January 2017, it was merged into the commune Moret-Loing-et-Orvanne.By, with

Champagne-sur-Seine Champagne-sur-Seine () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. Demographics The inhabitants are called ''Champenois''. See also *Communes of the Seine-et-Marne department The follo ...

in the right background and a young girl just left of centre, probably the artist's twelve-year-old daughter Jeanne. The same path appears in mirror-image in his ''

The Small Meadows at By, Stormy Weather ''The Small Meadows at By, Stormy Weather'' (D. 405) is a painting by Alfred Sisley, now in the Musée d'art et d'histoire de Meudon. It shows in mirror image the same path as in his '' The Small Meadows in Spring, By '' (1881). It was redisco ...

''.

Production

In 1880 financial difficulties forced Sisley to leave

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for ...

and in 1882 he set up home in

Moret-sur-Loing Moret-sur-Loing (, literally ''Moret on Loing'') is a former commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is situated on the river Loing, close to its confluence with the Seine. Moret–Ven ...

to the south-east of Paris, where he spent the rest of his life. Before definitively settling in Moret, he also painted several works in the area around Veneux-les-Sablons. This also marked a turning-point in his oeuvre, giving his landscapes a vitality and incomparable freshness. It was catalogue number 35 in an anonymous sale at the

Hôtel Drouot Hôtel Drouot is a large auction house in Paris, known for fine art, antiques, and antiquities. It consists of 16 halls hosting 70 independent auction firms, which operate under the umbrella grouping of Drouot. The firm's main location, called D ...

, curated by

Paul Durand-Ruel Paul Durand-Ruel (31 October 1831, Paris – 5 February 1922, Paris) was a French art dealer associated with the Impressionists and the Barbizon School. Being the first to support artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-August ...

and the commissaire-priseur Paul Chevalier/. It was later owned by Erwin Davis, before being bought back on 14 April 1899 in New York by Durand Ruel. In 1931 it was owned by Arthur Tooth & Sons, before being presented to the National Gallery in 1936 in memory of

Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developm ...

. In 1953 the National Gallery assigned it to Tate Britain, which loaned in back to the National Gallery in 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Small Meadows in Spring Paintings by Alfred Sisley 1881 paintings River Seine in art