The Watering Place at Marly-le-Roi

The watering place at Marly was constructed during the seventeenth century as part of a large hydraulic system that supplied water to the fountains and pools at the Château de Marly, Louis XIV’s country retreat. As part of the king’s royal complex, it belonged to the same system as the Marly aqueduct and the Machine the Marly, both of which, like the watering place, Sisley painted on several occasions. By the mid-nineteenth century the château and its environs served as mere remnants of courtly life enjoyed more than one hundred years earlier. The buildings and the grounds had been destroyed during the revolution, and by the time of Sisley’s arrival, the reservoir of the once-glamorous château functioned as an area in which to wash clothes and a pond from which horses might drink.