The original painting depicts the banks of the Seine at the foot of the Argenteuil road bridge, connecting Gennevilliers to Argenteuil, seen from the Quai du Petit-Gennevilliers. On the water, in the foreground, are a catboat and two Argenteuil clippers, pleasure sailboats, anchored near the pontoon of the Cercle de la Voile de Paris (CVP). At the time, between 1850 and 1893, this stretch of the Seine between the Pont d’Argenteuil and the Pont de Bezons was the center of sailing in the Paris region, known as the Bassin d’Argenteuil. The regattas organized during the Universal Exhibitions of 1867, 1878, and 1889 took place on this site. On the right of the painting, the Argenteuil toll road bridge, built in 1822, was destroyed during the war of 1870 and rebuilt from 1871. At the start of the work, a temporary wooden footbridge, which was depicted by Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley in 1872, replaced the old bridge. On the canvas, it is therefore the arches of the new bridge that can be seen with the two towers of the toll station in the background. To the left, the trees are the elms of the quinconces of Argenteuil, a wooded area between the Seine and the Quai de Seine which would become Boulevard Héloïse. The large house in the middle of the trees is a hotel-restaurant.