Alfred Sisley (1839-1899 )Banks of the Loing, the cart; Banks of the Loing, six canoes moored; Banks of the Loing, the shore; Banks of the Loing, the houses by the water. About 1890. Etching on zinc. 222-225 x 145-150. Very nice proofs from a print on ivory laid paper. Small brownish spatters on the reverse of one plate, and another small reddish spot in the right margin of another. All margins untrimmed. Set of 4 p. These are the only four subjects engraved by the artist in etching, on zinc, and entrusted for the print run to Henri Guérard, vice-president of the Société des peintres-graveurs, for whom these subjects were probably engraved as trials - Sisley ultimately proving to be more at ease with the lithographic technique. The zincs were donated to the Bibliothèque nationale in 1974 by Henri Guérard's daughter-in-law. Before that, they had been reproduced. (See J. Bailly-Herzberg, Dictionnaire de l'estampe en France, 1830-1950, Paris, Flammarion, Arts et Métiers graphiques, 1985).