Sunset on the Seine

Sunset on the Seine, painted in 1882, is held by the Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis in Barletta, the museum honouring the artist's legacy in his hometown. Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro had made the Seine and its changing light into a paradigm of modern landscape painting throughout the 1870s and 1880s, and De Nittis's engagement with sunset on the river places him within this current. His particular sensitivity to atmospheric light effects, developed through years of painting in London and Paris, was well suited to capturing the intense chromatic contrasts of a Seine sunset — the warm oranges and reds reflected in the river surface set against the surrounding blue-grey atmosphere. The Pinacoteca in Barletta, which holds the largest institutional collection of his work, preserves both his early Italian output and the mature Parisian period.

The sunset palette is organised around warm oranges, pinks, and golds in the sky and their reflections in the river, set against cooler blues and greys. The brushwork is fluid and atmospheric, with horizontal broken strokes on the Seine capturing water movement and light.