Brief Report

The Seine, with its green banks, picturesque houses and boats was one of Caillebotte's favourite motifs at this time [Berhaut 1994, pp.224-231, cf. Caillebotte WRM Dep. FC 603]. For the present picture, the artist chose a fine, net-like canvas preprimed in white, not dissimilar to the commercially available study-grade canvases known as toiles étude or toiles pochade. With brisk dark brushstrokes, he sketched the outlines of houses, trees and boats on the white ground before underpainting the individual motifs in thin applications of the respective local colour (figs 7, 8, 9). The picture was then completed in broad brushstrokes briskly, and largely wet-in-wet (figs 10, 11, 12). In the bottom left corner there are semi-circular traces of smearing and scratching, which clearly date from when the paint was still wet (fig. 6). While they cannot be attributed with certainty to a particular object, they could point to the picture's having been fastened and transported in the open air. The appearance of the picture we see today is heavily influenced by the fact that it has been lined, which has resulted among other things in clear deformations and flattening of impasto paint applications, and not least the removal of the original turnover edge and a slight reduction in overall size.

Gustave Caillebotte
Banks of the Seine, 1891, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 60.8 cm, WRM Dep. FC 706

Gustave Caillebotte

born on 19 August 1848 in Paris,
died on 21 February 1894 in Gennevilliers

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso, lined


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

Transmitted light


Fig. 05

UV fluorescence


Fig. 06

Detail in bottom lefthand corner with traces of smearing and scratching while the paint was still wet, thus possibly pointing to the picture's having been handled in the open air


Fig. 07

Detail, the houses were first outlined in black paint with a brush; these contours remain visible in places as outlines or shadow lines


Fig. 08

Details of the underdrawing/ underpainting in the house or shed on the left bank; bottom: microscopic photographs (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 09

Detail of the path on the right bank, two-layer paint structure with a first thin layer in the local colour, followed by impasto brush strokes on top


Fig. 10

Detail of the trees, brushwork is clearly visible: thin and well distributed in the sky, modelled and impasto in the foliage


Fig. 11

Detail of the reflections in the water with wet-in-wet paint application


Fig. 12

Wet-in-wet paint applications, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)