The small town of Saint-Mammès is located about forty miles south of Paris, where the Seine and Loing rivers are joined by a canal. Alfred Sisley was fond of the area and often painted there in the 1880s, undoubtedly attracted by the low rents, since his poverty had become chronic in the wake of the bankruptcy and death of his father. Sisley rendered this view of the Saint-Mammès-Loring canal with a classic Impressionist technique, using pure color and soft, flickering brushwork that dissolves forms into a haze of optical sensations approximating the effect of brilliant, outdoor light.