Cows in Pasture, Louveciennes

A large tree stands on the left, with a figure visible beside its trunk. Three cows graze on the green meadow, and a whitish road curving to the right leads into the distance. Beyond are green trees and houses, and a blue sky with clouds.

Louveciennes is a quiet suburban village about 25 kilometers west of Paris. Impressionist painters repeatedly set up their easels there in the run-up to 1874, the year of the first Impressionist show. The painter most closely tied to it was Sisley, who moved there around the summer of 1870 and worked there in the early 1870s until he moved to Marly-le-Roi in 1875.

The commentary says it is unclear whether the place shown is the road going down from the Versailles road toward the "watering place" at Marly-le-Roi, or the view of Louveciennes from the hill at Marly-le-Roi. The curving road to the right is an important element of the composition, and the three cows form its center. It may be one of the five landscape paintings submitted to the first Impressionist show held in April 1874.