Brief Report

The Laundry Drying is the largest of a total of five paintings devoted by Caillebotte to this motif between 1888 and 1892 not far from his home in Petit Gennevilliers [Berhaut, cat. no. 366-370]. A smaller oil painting relates directly to the large composition and may have served as a preliminary study [Berhaut, cat. no. 367] (fig. 12). Pace Berhaut, the picture in Cologne was painted not in 1888, but, according to a catalogue in the Durand-Ruel archive, in about 1892 [Caillebotte 1994, p. 304]. Caillebotte used a canvas pre-primed in light grey; it was not in any standard French size, but cut to order by the Paris dealers Benoit/Deforge-Carpentier [Constantin 2003, p. 123], who presumably, as suggested by a stamp verso, also performed the stretching (fig. 2). The size of the picture would lead us to believe at first that Caillebotte painted it in the studio. However a stereo-microscopic examination reveals considerable evidence that it was in fact painted in the open air. This evidence includes not only scratches and smears, but also small embedded stones and vegetable matter, not least a small leaf-bud which can be botanically identified as coming from a poplar (fig. 11). This creates an immediate relationship with the motif, the trees appearing to be poplars. The first lay-in of the picture was done in two stages, first in charcoal and then with a few brush-strokes in various colours which establish only the most important lines of the composition (figs. 5, 6). The subsequent execution was predominantly wet-in-wet, presumably in a single session. The picture is dominated by pale linen drying in the breeze on a line along the tree-lined bank of the Seine. Caillebotte restricts himself to just a few dominant colours, largely various blue, grey and white tones contrasting strongly in brightness, with a few colour accents in red and yellow blends. There are numerous indications that the painting was not completed, as has already been assumed at various times in the past [Caillebotte 1994, p. 187; Caillebotte 2005, p. 147]. Compared with other paintings from Caillebotte’s late period, the Laundry Drying is, from the point of view of its painterly technique, very sketchlike in character, with conspicuously long brush-strokes and numerous areas where the pale-grey ground was left unpainted (figs. 4, 6, 8). A further clue to the incomplete nature of the picture is the blue signature stamp in the bottom left-hand corner, which was added posthumously (fig. 7), although it is true that in Caillebotte’s oeuvre we find other paintings which were left unsigned but can still be proved to have been exhibited in his lifetime [e.g. Caillebotte 1994, cat. no. 34].

Gustave Caillebotte
Laundry Drying on the Banks of the Seine, c. 1892, oil on canvas, 105.5 x 150.5 cm, WRM Dep. 447

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 with Colourman Stamp


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

Transmitted light


Fig. 05

Mapping of the charcoal underdrawing, with microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 06

Detail, brush underdrawing in the area of the houseboats


Fig. 07

Detail, signature, with microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 08

Detail, path, open sketchlike painting technique


Fig. 09

Detail, washing, impasto


Fig. 10

Detail, foliage, impasto


Fig. 11

Poplar bud embedded in the paint layer, detail (left) and enlarged (top right, microscopic photograph, M = 1 mm),
botanical drawing of a poplar bud for comparison (bottom
right)


Fig. 12

Gustave Caillebotte, oil study for Laundry Drying on the Banks of the Seine, 54.0 x 65.0 cm, private collection