Gustave Caillebotte

André Maurice, Paris

Galerie Matthiesen, London (acquired by 1957)

Lord Sieff of Brimpton (sold: Sotheby's, London, June 26, 2001, lot 1)

Richard Green Fine Paintings, London (acquired at the above sale)

Private Collection, New Jersey (sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 3, 2005, lot 56)

Acquired at the above sale

Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Park und Garten in der Malerei, vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, 1957, no. 59

Potsdam, Museum Barberini, Impressionism, The Art of Landscape, 2017, no. 60, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte, sa vie et son oeuvre. Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris, 1978, no. 375, illustrated p. 207

Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte, Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris, 1994, no. 405, illustrated p. 222 (as dating from 1890)

Painted in 1890-91, Le Jardin du Petit Gennevilliers, les toits roses depicts the lush garden landscape and architectural elements of Caillebotte’s residence in Petit Gennevilliers. A beautiful rural region unspoiled by modern development, Petit Gennevilliers had a pastoral charm that provided Caillebotte, as well as Monet and Renoir before him, with a constant source of inspiration for his painting. Paul Hayes Tucker wrote about the quieter Petit Bras, and his description explains the attraction of this tranquil region to so many landscape painters: “Removed from the activity of the main body of the Seine and thus from the evidence of commerce and leisure that the river attracted, the Petit Bras was a picturesque retreat that evoked a sense of bygone days. Although its mouth was used as a docking area for pleasure craft, its shores were refreshingly free of development, and the trees and bushes along its banks could mask whatever encroachments might lurk offstage. It was, in short, somewhere one could be in communion with nature”(P. Hayes Tucker in The Impressionists at Argenteuil (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. & Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, 2000, p. 168).

Le Jardin du Petit Gennevilliers, les toits roses was most recently exhibited in 2017 at the Museum Barberini’s Impressionism, The Art of Landscape exhibition whose catalogue mentioned the present work claiming, “In 1888, Caillebotte left Paris to live at Petit Gennevilliers on a permanent basis, expanding his estate through the purchase of additional adjacent parcels and constructing a hothouse for orchid cultivation, in addition to a studio in which to paint. Alongside numerous other scenes executed from diverse viewpoints within his estate, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers, the Rose Roofs, of 1890-91 (cat. 60) [the present work] testifies to the way in which Caillebotte familiarizes himself with his new surroundings by means of painting. Like Monet in his garden realm in Giverny, Caillebotte spent the final years of his life surrounded by the plants and flowers of his garden, which became the predominant theme of his work" (J. Knöschke in Impressionism, The Art of Landscape (exhibition catalogue), Museum Barberini, Pottsdam, 2017, p. 174).