Gustave Caillebotte
Lilacs and Peonies in Two Vases, 1883
On view
7 further works by Caillebotte
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Oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm
Signed lower left: G. Caillebotte (by Martial Caillebotte, stamped)
Inv.-no. MB-Cai-04
In 1881 Gustave Caillebotte purchased a country house in the Seine village of Le Petit-Gennevilliers, across from Argenteuil. There he set up a flower garden with a greenhouse for orchids. He exchanged ideas about horticulture with Monet, who was also a passionate gardener. Inspired by his example, Caillebotte painted twenty-five still lifes with flowers from his garden.
Gustave Caillebotte’s involvement with the Impressionists from the spring of 1876 on was important not only for his artistic contribution to the movement. The affluent Caillebotte also served as a collector and patron and assisted many of his colleagues with regular financial support. Unlike his Impressionist allies, he was not dependent on art for his income and made few efforts to market his work. In his will, Caillebotte bequeathed around sixty Impressionist works from his collection to the French state, including paintings by Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. Around forty of these were accepted as a bequest in February 1896 and were exhibited a year later in the Musée du Luxembourg in the Salle Caillebotte. The artist had named Renoir as the executor of his will.
One of the two still lifes in Caillebotte’s possession was a work by Monet: Red Chrysanthemums (1880, private collection), which the artist had shown at the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1882. Under Monet’s influence, Caillebotte painted a number of flower still lifes beginning the following year and used them to decorate the living spaces of his stately house at Le Petit-Gennevilliers. The choice of motif was informed by his passion for gardening, an activity to which Caillebotte devoted himself to in the 1880s and 1890s with as much enthusiasm as Monet at Giverny. The two painters maintained a lively correspondence, offering each other advice on gardening and botany.
In this still life, the interior space is indicated only schematically, and the colorful patterned tablecloth appears as an abstract tangle of broad, impasto brushstrokes. The turquoise-colored vase in the foreground, on the other hand, is more carefully modeled and its smooth texture evoked through a finer application of paint. Caillebotte used vibrating tones of white, pink, and violet to capture the lilacs and peonies, whose luxuriant volume dominates the picture space.
In the catalogue raisonné of Caillebotte’s paintings compiled by Marie Berhaut, Lilacs and Peonies in Two Vases is listed as no. 255.
Daniel Zamani
Des fleurs et des fruits, Galerie Guy Stein, Paris, 1936, no. 58
Les fleurs et les fruits depuis le Romantisme, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1942/43, no. 23
Gustave Caillebotte, Galerie Beaux-Arts, Paris, May–July 1951, no. 52
The Two Sides of the Medal: French Painting from Gérôme to Gaugin, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1954, no. 81b
Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, January 21–May 28, 2017
Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, from September 5, 2020
n.d., Ambroise Vollard, Paris,
inv.-no. 5195
n.d., Cornelis Hoogendijk, Le Havre
May 21–22, 1912, Muller, Amsterdam, lot 4, consigned by the above
ca. 1936, Comte Arnauld Doria, Paris, inv.-no. 636
April 12, 1943, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lot 93, consigned by the above
ca. 1954, Hirschl & Adler, New York
n.d., Private collection, acquired from the above
n.d., Private collection, Palm Beach, inherited from the above
February 5, 2001, Sotheby’s, London, lot 9, consigned by the above
Private collection, Connecticut, acquired at the above sale
May 7, 2014, Sotheby’s, New York, lot 29, consigned by the above
Exposition de peinture ancienne et modern: Des Fleurs et des fruits, exh. cat. Galerie Guy Stein, Paris 1936, no. 58
Les fleurs et les fruits depuis le Romantisme, exh. cat. Galerie Charpentier, Paris 1942, no. 23
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), exh. cat. Galerie Beaux-Arts, Paris 1951, no. 52
Marie Berhaut, La vie et l’œuvre de Gustave Caillebotte, Paris 1951, no. 181
The Two Sides of the Medal: French Painting from Gérôme to Gaugin, exh. cat. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit 1954, no. 81b
Marie Berhaut, Caillebotte, sa vie et son œuvre: Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1978, no. 241, ill. p. 241
Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, no. 255, ill. p. 169
Yves Lemoine and Jean-Charles Le Roux, Chenue layetier-emballeur depuis 250 ans, Paris 2010
Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2017, no. 64, p. 174, ill. p. 170, 185
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