Fishing on the Seine

Fishing on the Seine, painted in 1878, marks one of Zandomeneghi's earliest engagements with specifically Parisian subjects after his arrival in France four years earlier. The Seine and its banks were among the most painted subjects of the Impressionist movement — Monet, Renoir, and Sisley had all explored the river's changing light and the leisure activities that animated its banks. By choosing to paint a scene of angling — an essentially contemplative, working-class leisure activity — Zandomeneghi placed himself in dialogue with this established Impressionist preoccupation while finding a quieter, less spectacular corner of the river than those favoured by his French contemporaries. Now in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Florence, the work documents his rapid assimilation of French outdoor painting concerns in the years following his move to Paris, when he was forming the friendships with Degas and Pissarro that would define his subsequent development.

The outdoor river scene deploys Zandomeneghi's early adoption of Impressionist technique: broken colour passages describing water reflections, the figures of fishermen reduced to simplified shapes against the light. The palette is cooler than his interior work, reflecting the diffused light of the riverside.