Rousseau painted this moonlit landscape in Suresnes, a suburb west of Paris just beyond Puteaux which would later become the epicentre of the Salon Cubists. The artist angles the composition towards the city, juxtaposing the relative calm of these riverbanks with an icon of the industrial age - the Eiffel Tower. Gustave Eiffel constructed his tower in 1889 as an entrance to the World's Fair. Shortly after its conception, writers and artists such as Guy de Maupassant and Adolphe Bougereau viewed the tower as a monstrosity and vehemently protested its construction. The completed structure, originally meant to be temporary, was viewed with such controversial awe that it remained, becoming one of the most important landmarks in Europe. Rousseau celebrates the controversial emblem of France in this painting, softening its harsh angularity into a gently bending form that appears part of the organic landscape.
[Sold for $545,000 at Sotheby’s - Oil on canvas, 46.1 x 55.2 cm]