Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois

In the spring of 1867 the young Monet did something slightly cheeky. He and Renoir won permission to set up easels on a balcony of the Louvre, where painters normally went to copy the old masters indoors, and instead Monet turned his back on the collection to paint the living city outside. This is one of three views he made from that perch: the medieval church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, its Gothic front softened by the fresh green of the trees and a scatter of tiny Parisians going about their morning. He was 26, and Paris around him was half building site, being remade street by street under Baron Haussmann. Pictures like this one are usually counted among the earliest Impressionist views of the modern city.