Brief Report
For this small painting, Caillebotte used a standard F5 size canvas, a format he often employed, commercially preprimed in white [Berhaut 1994, no. 163, no. 152, no. 38, no. 30, no. 556 ff]. The artist painted the idyllic garden scenery apparently without any preliminary drawing. His only orientation was a few brush-strokes and broader areas of underpainting, before he filled in the picture with countless dabs of paint and short wavy lines. Caillebotte went about this process briskly. After the first underpainting had dried, he worked predominantly wet-in-wet, so that we can assume the picture was completed in just a few sessions (figs. 10, 11). The quick work and the directness of the depiction suggest that the picture was painted in the presence of the motif. Indeed we find on the picture traces of a typical aid to plein air painting. Thus in all four corners there are pinholes and circular depressions, which could be due to the use of spacers [cf. Guillaumin, WRM Dep. FC 749; Bomford 1990, p. 178] (fig. 12). These were small round blocks of wood with metal spikes on both sides: two freshly painted pictures could be safely transported face-to-face when these spacers were stuck into the corners of each to keep them apart [cf. Winsor & Newton 1896, p. 117]. In the present case, attempts were later made to hide these traces by filling and retouching, so that today one has to look for them.
Gustave Caillebotte
born on 19 August 1848 in Paris,
died on 21 February 1894 in Gennevilliers
Fig. 02
Verso with standard-format stamp 5 F
Fig. 03
Raking light
Fig. 04
Transmitted light
Fig. 05
UV-fluorescence
Fig. 06
X-ray
Fig. 07
Detail, signature, microscopic photograph, (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 08
Detail, bottom centre, where the paint layer is flanking the green, partly abraded underpainting is visible
Fig. 09
Areas where the ground is visible, and violet underpainting line to mark out the espalier, microscopic photograph
(M = 1 mm)
Fig. 10
Wet-in-wet applications, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 11
Red lake in the area of the rose petals, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)
Fig. 12
Detail, bottom left-hand corner of picture, circular impressions in the fresh paint probably result from the use of commercial spacers (see above), microscopic photograph
(M = 1 mm)