Sisley first exhibited at the Salon in 1866, showing two landscapes painted near the Forest of Fontainebleau, and another painting was accepted by the Salon jury two years later. The few works that remain from the 1860s reveal Sisley's enduring artistic concerns, such as the rural landscape occasionally punctuated with figures, a road receding into a distant village, and the influence of Corot in both subject matter and style.'

The acceptance of two of his paintings by the Salon in 1870 marked the final occasion on which Sisley exhibited there. After the Franco-Prussian War destroyed his father's business and caused the older gentleman's eventual death, Sisley was forced to depend upon sales of his canvases to support his family-.' From his home in Louveciennes, where he moved in 1872, the artist traveled to nearby Argenteuil, Bougival, and Port-Marly, as evidenced by his paintings from this time. Also during the early 1870s he met Paul Durand-Ruel, who featured works by Sisley in an 1872 exhibition in his London gallery.

In 1874, as a founding member of the Societe anonyme cooperative des artistes peintures, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc., Sisley contributed six paintings to the first Impressionist exhibition, including The Ferry-of the Ile de la Loge: Flood (1872) and The Machine de Marly (1873, both in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen). That summer Sisley returned to England at the invitation of Jean-Baptiste Faure, a renowned singer and an early patron of the Impressionists. There he painted several views of Hampton Court and depicted everyday life in the nearby riverside village of East Molesey. Soon after his return to France, Sisley relocated to Marly-le-Rol, where he was again inspired to paint his immediate surroundings. One series of seven paintings captures the rising waters of the Seine as it flooded Port-Marly. At least two of the flood paintings were included in the second Impressionist exhibition of 1876.

Sisley contributed seventeen canvases, several of which again portrayed the environs of Louveciennes and Marly, to the third Impressionist exhibition the following year. In 1879 Sisley abstained from participating in the fourth Impressionist exhibition and instead, along with Renoir and Monet, submitted works to the Salon (Sisley's were refused). One year later he moved to Moret-sur-Loing, which remained his home until his death two decades later.

In 1883 the Durand-Ruel gallery held Sisley's first one-person exhibition. By the middle of the decade, however, both critics and colleagues were growing dissatisfied with Sisley's paintings.' He continued to exhibit with the Impressionists, but like a number of the original members of the group, he did not participate in their final exhibition of 1886. Later in the decade, hoping to improve his financial situation as well as his reputation, Sisley began working in pastel, a medium popular with the public. Around this time he also focused on creating series of specific scenes with slight variations in time of day, light, weather, and season.