Provenance
Armand-François-Paul des Frisches, Comte Doria [1824-1896], Paris; (his sale, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 4 May 1899, no. 224); purchased by (Durand-Ruel, New York and Paris); sold 1900 to (Bernheim-Jeune, Paris). Jules Strauss [1861-1943], Paris; (Strauss sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 3 May 1902, no. 60); purchased by Joubert, possibly for (Galeries Georges Petit, Paris)[1] Senator Antonio Santamarina, Buenos Aires, by 1933;[2] sold 1957 to (Wildenstein and Co., New York);[3] by whom sold 4 October 1957 to Ailsa Mellon Bruce [1901-1969], New York;[4] bequest 1970 to NGA.
[1] Joubert is recorded as purchaser in an annotated copy of sales catalogue in NGA curatorial files, and in the _Gazette de l'Hotel Drouot_. Galerie Georges Petit according to Françoise Daulte, _Alfred Sisley, Catalogue Raisonné de l'oeuvre peint_, Lausanne, 1959, no. 190.
[2] Santamarina lent _Meadow_ (_La Prairie_) to an exhibition in Buenos Aires in 1933. It was included in the 3-5 October 1955 sale of the Santamarina collection held at Adolfo Bullrich Y Cia in Buenos Aires, no. 79.
[3] Wildenstein date and source of acquisition according to letter dated 14 December 1998, in NGA curatorial files.
[4] Receipt dated 4 October 1957 from Wildenstein to Mrs. Bruce, in NGA curatorial files.
Accession Number
1970.17.83
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 54.9 x 73 cm (21 5/8 x 28 3/4 in.) | framed: 79.7 x 98.7 x 10.2 cm (31 3/8 x 38 7/8 x 4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
Meadow (1875) is one of Sisley's most pure landscape statements—a composition that strips away narrative, architecture, and human figures to present a meadow as an environment of light, color, and natural form. The painting's apparent simplicity conceals the subtlety of its construction: Sisley organizes the meadow's expanse through gradations of green, the sky's reflections in wet grass, and the compositional balance between sky and ground. The year 1875 places this work during the Impressionist group's most cohesive period, when they were exhibiting together regularly and developing their shared commitment to painting directly from nature. The meadow as a subject represents Impressionist painting's radical core: the insistence that any visual experience—however seemingly insignificant—deserves serious artistic attention. A meadow has no narrative interest, no dramatic topographical features, no cultural associations beyond pastoral convention. By choosing this subject, Sisley asserts that the act of seeing itself—as opposed to what is seen—is the proper subject of painting. His handling of the meadow's greens demonstrates the chromatic sophistication possible within an apparently limited palette: no two square inches of the canvas contain exactly the same green, creating a visual richness that reproductions cannot convey.
Cultural Impact
Sisley's Meadow influenced the tradition of pure landscape painting in France, demonstrating that landscape could function without narrative or figurative elements. The painting influenced later artists who approached pure landscape—from Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire to Rothko's color fields—who similarly sought to create visual experiences from minimal subject matter. The meadow subject also influenced French cultural perceptions of rural landscape, contributing to the valuation of ordinary agricultural terrain as worthy of aesthetic attention.
Why It Matters
This painting matters because it demonstrates the frontier between representation and abstraction in 19th-century painting. Sisley's Meadow, stripped of narrative interest, approaches the condition of pure visual experience—a condition that 20th-century abstract painting would embrace fully. The painting thus represents a crucial step in art's development from depicting things to depicting the experience of seeing, making it a key document for understanding how modern art emerged from Impressionist practice.
