Rue de la tannerie à Moret-sur-Loing

Rue de la tannerie à Moret-sur-Loing from 1895 shows Sisley entering the town itself rather than viewing it from the river — one of the medieval streets that preserved the character of pre-industrial France that made Moret attractive to nineteenth-century painters. The tannery street ran close to the Loing and would have retained the smells and sounds of its traditional industry. The Lowe Art Museum in Miami holds this urban-within-rural canvas, demonstrating Sisley's less frequently noted ability to paint architecture as convincingly as landscape.

The narrow street creates a strong compositional channel leading the eye between stone building facades on either side. Sisley renders the aged stone walls in ochres and warm grays, light falling across irregular surfaces creating complex tonal variations that he captures with varied directional strokes.