La Seine, vue des coteaux de By

La Seine, vue des coteaux de By from 1881 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers shows Sisley taking an elevated viewpoint — the wooded hillsides of By looking down toward the Seine — that gives the composition unusual spatial depth. By is a small village near the Seine, and Sisley's use of its slopes as a vantage point shows his interest in compositional problems beyond simple riverside views. Angers' museum holds this work as part of its survey of French nineteenth-century painting.

The elevated viewpoint allows Sisley to treat the Seine as a luminous band in the middle distance rather than an immediate foreground subject — the river reflecting light back through the landscape in a way that unifies the composition. Foreground slopes with their vegetation are rendered more broadly to suggest nearness, while the distant Seine is painted with delicate atmospheric strokes.