Gustave Caillebotte

In many of his Parisian city scenes, Gustave Caillebotte focused on the window as a psychological threshold—a visual boundary between the private, protected space of the bourgeois interior and the anonymous world of the street. Here, the viewer’s location on the balcony makes the urban panorama the sole subject of the painting. The unusually high vantage point creates a visual pull into depth, further intensified by the steeply angled window frame to the left—the only element connected to the interior space behind it. The center of the composition is dominated by the vertical ascent of the Rue Halévy toward the Opéra Garnier. Rendered as a flat, light-colored form in thick brushstrokes, the street is punctuated only by the blurred figures of pedestrians and carriages. Both the perspective and the haziness of the image recall Claude Monet’s painting Boulevard des Capucines (1873–74, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City), which Caillebotte certainly knew and had possibly already seen at the first Impressionist Exhibition in 1874. Despite the looseness of the brushwork, Caillebotte clearly articulated the architectural details of the Haussmannian façades. The reduced color scheme with its striking blue-violet accents intensifies the sketch-like quality of the painting, which Caillebotte submitted to the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in 1879. The piece is related to another work from the following year, Rue Halévy, View from a Balcony. Caillebotte painted both images looking out from a building on Rue La Fayette with a direct view of the Opéra Garnier. In both, the urban topography can be identified by means of the golden sculpture on the roof of the opera house, which was completed in 1875.

In the catalogue raisonné of Caillebotte’s paintings compiled by Marie Berhaut, Rue Halévy, View from the Sixth Floor is listed as no. 100.

Daniel Zamani

4me Exposition de Peinture, 28, avenue de l'Opéra, Paris, April 10–May 11, 1879, no. 14

Exposition rétrospective d'œuvres de Gustave Caillebotte, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1894, no. 97

Maître français du XIXème et XXème siècle, E. J. van Wisselingh, Amsterdam, 1966, no. 3

Gustave Caillebotte: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Wildenstein, New York, September 18–October 19, 1968, no. 20

Gustave Caillebotte: A Retrospective Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 22, 1976–January 2, 1977; Brooklyn Museum, New York, February 12–April 24, 1977, no. 41

Gustave Caillebotte, Fondation Septentrion, Marcq-en-Baroeul, October 16, 1982–January 23, 1983, no. 12

Impressionist and Modern Masters in Dallas: Monet to Mondrian, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, September 3–October 22, 1989

Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, September 12, 1994–January 9, 1995; The Art Institute of Chicago, February 15–May 28, 1995, no. 62

Caillebotte: Au cœur de l'impressionnisme, Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne, June 24–October 23, 2005, no. 29

Private Collection, Texas: European Masterpieces from Texas Homes, Past and Present, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 2009/10

Les Impressionistes en privé, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, February 13–July 6, 2014, no. 16

Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye, National Gallery of Art, Washington, June 28–October 4, 2015; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, November 8, 2015–February 14, 2016, no. 12

Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, from September 5, 2020

ca. 1894, Paul Hugot, Paris
ca. 1966, E. J. van Wisselingh, Amsterdam
1968, Wildenstein, New York
1969, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Roth, New York
1977, Private collection, New York, inherited from the above
n.d., Aldis Brown Fine Arts, New York
1981, Irvin Levy, Dallas, acquired from the above
April 14, 2019, Sotheby’s, New York, lot 17, consigned by the above

Le Griffon vert, “Echos de Paris. La ville,” in Le Voltaire (May 1, 1879)

Robert Pincus-Witten, “A Caillebotte Exhibition at Wildenstein,” in Artforum (November 1968), p. 55

Marie Berhaut, “Gustave Caillebotte et le réalisme impressionniste,” in L'Œil (November 1977), ill. p. 49

Marie Berhaut, Caillebotte: L'impressionniste, Lausanne/Paris 1968, no. 9, ill. p. 21

Jean Clay, L'impressionnisme, Paris 1971, ill. p. 77

Gustave Caillebotte: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 1976, no. 41, ill. p. 131

Marie Berhaut, Caillebotte, sa vie et son œuvre: Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1978, no. 116, p. 47, ill. p. 121

The New Painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exh. cat. Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco 1986, ill. p. 254

Chantal Georgel, La Rue, Paris 1986, p. 74/75

Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, Paris (French Edition) 1988, no. 28, ill. p. 115

Impressionist and Modern Masters in Dallas: Monet to Mondrian, exh. cat. Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas 1989, ill. p. 42, Plate 16

Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, no. 100, ill. p. 110

Gustave Caillebotte: 1848–1894, exh. cat. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris 1994, no. 62, ill. p. 193

Jean-Jacques Lévêque, Gustave Caillebotte: L'oublié de l'Impressionnisme 1848–1894, Paris 1994, ill. p. 129

Ruth Berson, The New Painting: Impressionism 1874–1886. Documentation, vol. 2, San Francisco/Seattle 1996, no. IV-14, p. 106, ill. p. 123

Caillebotte: Au cœur de l'impressionisme, exh. cat. Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne 2005, no. 29, ill. p. 31

James Henry Rubin, Impressionism and the Modern Landscape: Productivity, Technology and Urbanization from Manet to Van Gogh, Berkeley 2008, ill. p. 36

Karin Sagner, Gustave Caillebotte: Neue Perspektiven des Impressionismus, Munich 2009, ill. p. 53

Les Impressionistes en privé, exh. cat. Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris 2014, no. 16, ill. p. 53

Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye, exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington 2015, no. 12, p. 277, ill. p. 149

Michael Marrinan, Gustave Caillebotte: Painting the Paris of Naturalism, 1872–1887, Los Angeles 2016, p. 201–3, ill. p. VI (detail), 202 (no. 103)

Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2020, p. 96/97, 100, 264, ill. p. 99, 264