Like many great artists before him and since, the French Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley enjoyed little commercial success during his lifetime. Although family wealth enabled him to pursue his early career free from financial worries, the collapse of his father's business during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 threw him on his own resources. From then until his death in 1899 he lived in straightened circumstances. To economise, Sisley moved his family out of central Paris to Moret-sur-Loing, near Fontainebleau. There he painted what are now regarded as among his most powerful works, one of which, Le chantier de Matrat à Moret-sur-Loing is to be offered at Bonhams' Impressionist and Modern Art sale in London on Thursday 25 March. It is estimated at £550,000-750,000.

Painted in 1889, some years after Sisley had moved to the area, Le chantier de Matrat à Moret-sur-Loing is one of several depictions of the village and its surroundings. The artist was particularly drawn to landscape – Sisley portraits are rare – and he maintained the practice of the early Impressionists of painting in the open air directly onto canvas for much of his professional life.

Bonhams Global Head of Impressionist and Modern Art, India Phillips, said, "Le chantier de Matrat à Moret-sur-Loing is quintessential late Sisley with its bold palette and powerful, expressive composition. He was to capture this scene of the path on the Loing river many times from different angles and in different weather, but never perhaps as ravishingly as here."