Promenade at Argenteuil

By 1883 Caillebotte was spending less time in Paris and more on the Seine. Two years earlier he had taken a house at Petit-Gennevilliers, just across the river from Argenteuil, the boating suburb where Monet had lived through the 1870s. He had money, having inherited a fortune, and he had largely stepped back from the Impressionist exhibitions after the group's show of 1882. What drew him now was the water: sailing, designing boats, and painting the riverbanks around his home. This walk at Argenteuil belongs to that quieter stretch of his life, when the painter of Paris streets and floor-scrapers had turned to the towns and towpaths along the Seine. It stayed in private hands rather than a museum.