About this work
Painted in 1877, *Paris Street; A Rainy Day* is a large oil on canvas depicting a number of individuals walking through what is now known as the Place de Dublin — a six-point intersection to the east of the Gare Saint-Lazare in north Paris. What strikes the viewer first is the couple commanding the foreground: the wintry afternoon light illuminates two figures sharing an umbrella, both dressed in the height of contemporary Parisian fashion — she in a fur-lined coat, hat, and veil; he in a top hat.
A strong vertical green lamppost divides the canvas, while a horizontal alignment breaks the composition into quarters; cobblestones dominate a full quarter of the painting, their wet surfaces catching the gaslight.
Rather than painting raindrops explicitly, Caillebotte suggests the weather through the incorporation of newly available retractable umbrellas and subtle reflections on the wet cobblestones. The palette is a study in restrained silver and grey, the cream-limestone Haussmann façades receding with architectural precision into a pale, diffuse sky. The painting does not present a convivial mood — figures seem mostly isolated, expressions largely downcast, appearing to hurry rather than stroll, absorbed in their own thoughts.
Considered the artist's masterpiece, *Paris Street; A Rainy Day* merges the modern subjects Caillebotte absorbed from the Impressionists with the careful drawing and modeling he learned from the École des Beaux-Arts.
The ambitious painting represents the height of Caillebotte's artistic achievement — he would never again attempt a multi-figure composition on this scale.
It was first shown at the Third Impressionist Exhibition of 1877, where a reviewer described Caillebotte as "an Impressionist in name only," noting that "he knows how to draw." Soon after, Caillebotte moved away from this precision and increasingly adopted the thick brushstrokes and brighter palettes of his peers, though his works never again achieved the same originality. The painting is equally a document of its city: at the time Caillebotte immortalized this intersection, Baron Haussmann had transformed Paris from a medieval city into a modern capital, turning alleylike streets into broad boulevards — and the distant scaffolding in the background indicates that renovations were still ongoing.
The Art Institute of Chicago's 1964 acquisition of the work brought Caillebotte into greater prominence, enabling his status as a painter to begin to catch up to his long-established reputation as a philanthropist and patron.
As wall art
