La Machine de Marly
Alfred Sisley·1873
Historical Context
La Machine de Marly of 1873, held at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, depicts one of the most famous engineering installations of the ancien régime — the great hydraulic machine installed by Louis XIV in 1682 to pump Seine water 162 meters uphill to Versailles's fountains. By Sisley's time the original wooden machine had been replaced by a later steam installation, but the site retained its extraordinary historical significance: it represented the Sun King's conquest of nature on behalf of royal splendor, and the landscape around it bore the marks of centuries of hydraulic engineering. Sisley's treatment combines the historical interest of the site with the purely optical qualities of water and sky that were his primary subjects. Working alongside Pissarro in the Louveciennes-Marly area throughout the early 1870s, he was building a comprehensive map of this historically loaded Seine valley terrain. The Ny Carlsberg's acquisition reflects Scandinavian collectors' early and sustained engagement with French Impressionism, which found an appreciative audience in Denmark before it achieved comparable recognition in France.
Technical Analysis
The Machine de Marly creates an unusual industrial subject within Sisley's typically pastoral landscape practice. The mechanical structure is rendered with firmer, more architectural marks than his natural subjects, though the overall atmospheric treatment — sky above, Seine below — maintains his characteristic approach. The Glyptotek setting reflects Scandinavian enthusiasm for French Impressionism.
Look Closer
- ◆The Machine de Marly is rendered as a functional industrial landscape with the Seine surrounding it.
- ◆The Seine's surface reflects the machine's structures and riverside vegetation in Sisley's manner.
- ◆The industrial character is not aestheticized away — Sisley confronts modernity with direct.
- ◆Smoke or steam from the machine's operation rises into the sky — the working landscape acknowledged.
