Flood at Port Marly is the name given to a group of paintings Alfred Sisley made of the flooded Seine at Port Marly, a village west of Paris, in two separate floods, December 1872 and March 1876. He treated a genuine disaster as a study in still water and reflected light.
Two floods, ten years and one village apart
Sisley lived in and around Marly le Roi through the 1870s, close enough to walk to Port Marly when the Seine broke its banks. He painted the December 1872 flood, then returned to the same subject when the river rose again in March 1876.
One canvas from the 1872 group, now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, is signed and dated in the lower left corner: Sisley.72.
Calm water where there should be panic
Sisley painted the floodwater in light, broad strokes, smooth and reflective, closer to a still lagoon than a river in flood. The houses behind it, with their pink and yellow walls, are rendered in tighter, more careful brushwork.
The contrast is the whole picture: a solid, ordinary village and an event turning its street into a sheet of water and sky.
Scattered across three countries
Paintings from the two flood campaigns are now split between the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen, the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
No single museum holds the full group. Seeing the whole story of the flood means visiting at least three countries.
An accident hidden inside the Orsay canvas
In 2024 the Musée d'Orsay restored its version of the 1876 flood. Conservators found that a 1954 relining had gone wrong: the paint layer had detached from its original canvas and had to be transferred whole onto a new support, a repair conservators call a spontaneous transposition.
Decades of yellowed varnish from that 1954 intervention had dulled the color contrasts Sisley built the picture around. The 2024 cleaning brought back the separation between the flat, pale water and the more solid brushwork of the houses.
Questions about Flood at Port Marly
How many times did Sisley paint the flood at Port Marly? He painted the subject during two separate floods, in December 1872 and again in March 1876.
Where are the paintings today? Spread across several museums, including the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, and the Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen.
Was the flood really that calm looking? Sisley painted it that way. He gave the floodwater smooth, reflective brushwork closer to a still lagoon than a river bursting its banks.
Has a version been restored recently? Yes. The Musée d'Orsay restored its 1876 canvas in 2024, removing decades of yellowed varnish.
The Orsay canvas spent seventy years carrying an unplanned repair from a botched 1954 relining, invisible to visitors until conservators traced it through the museum's own restoration archives in 2024.
Read Alfred Sisley: The Complete Story for the rest of his life and work.