Mademoiselle Boissière Knitting

1877 was a busy year for Caillebotte. He helped organise and pay for the third Impressionist exhibition, and there he showed his huge Paris Street, Rainy Day, the grey boulevard scene he is best known for. He came from money, which let him both paint and quietly support friends like Monet and Renoir by buying their work. This canvas is far smaller and more inward: an elderly woman, Mademoiselle Boissiere, bent over her knitting, her hands caught in mid-stitch. He paints her heavy face and pursed lips exactly as he sees them, without flattery and without mockery. The close, even light and the plain setting hold all the attention on the small movement of the needles.