L'œuvre en bref

Painted in 1874, The Seine at Argenteuil was created during one of the visits Auguste Renoir made to Claude Monet, then settled at Argenteuil. This town on the banks of the Seine had become a centre of rowing and sailing, drawing Parisians in search of nautical leisure. Renoir and Monet often set up their easels side by side there, sharing a common enthusiasm for the play of light on the water and the bustle of the pleasure basins. This canvas belongs fully to the first wave of Impressionism, at the very moment when the movement had just been officially named at the group's first exhibition in April 1874.

At the centre of the composition, a large white sailboat occupies a dominant place, its deployed triangular sail filling nearly half the canvas. On the wooden pontoon, a man in a dark jacket observes the scene, while a child busies himself on board. Several other vessels dot the basin, their pale sails standing out against the wooded bank. In the foreground, two ducks paddle in the shallow water, adding a note of daily life to the scene. Renoir captures the surface of the water through a succession of short, fluid brushstrokes, alternating blues, ochres, and off-whites that convey the reflections of the sky and the hulls. The palette, dominated by soft blues, luminous whites, and the golden ochres of the pontoon, bathes the scene in a peaceful atmosphere typical of summer afternoons on the banks of the Seine, a subject also dear to Alfred Sisley and Gustave Caillebotte.

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