The Bell Tower at Noisy-le-Roi, Autumn

This view of Noisy-le-Roi, a village between Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye on the edge of the Marly forest, shows an autumn landscape in which the church bell tower takes centre stage. Sisley painted it in autumn 1874, after returning from a stay in the United Kingdom that had run from July to October that year, a trip financed by his patron Jean-Baptiste Faure. At the time he had been living in Louveciennes since 1872, and he would settle permanently in Marly-le-Roi in the winter of 1874, so the village belongs to the cluster of towns west of Paris that he returned to repeatedly.

The picture reflects the painter's interest in atmosphere rather than in the monument as such. The tower stands out against a soft sky, and the autumn light spreads muted colours over the rooftops and vegetation, with loose brushstrokes that suggest volume without hard outlines. This way of looking is typical of Impressionism: the scene is treated as a changing visual impression rather than a detailed description.

Its later history is also revealing. It appeared in a sale of works by Sisley, Monet, Renoir and Berthe Morisot held in Paris in March 1875, under the title Autumn Morning. It was bought by Paul Durand-Ruel, but the Paris Salon of 1876 rejected it. It then passed through several private hands, including that of baron Henri de Rothschild, before entering the collection of Sir William Burrell, who kept it in Lanark. It reached Glasgow in 1944 and is now part of the Burrell Collection.

Since the 1990s, a life-size reproduction has stood at the village entrance, close to the spot where the original was painted, as part of the Pays des Impressionnistes trail, linking the real landscape with the work.

Painter

Alfred Sisley

Date

1874

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

45 × 61 cm

Museum

Burrell Collection, Glasgow City

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