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Yerres, Effect of Rain

A river runs diagonally across the center of the canvas with a dirt path in the foreground and trees in the background. Raindrops are falling, creating concentric circles on the surface of the water. We are standing on the dirt path and directly across from us, a canoe is docked on the opposite riverbank.

A river runs diagonally across the center of the canvas with a dirt path in the foreground and trees in the background. Raindrops are falling, creating concentric circles on the surface of the water. We are standing on the dirt path and directly across from us, a canoe is docked on the opposite riverbank.

Artist Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848–1894)
Title Yerres, Effect of Rain (L' Yerres, effet du pluie)
Date 1875
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions Framed: 42 1/2 × 33 1/2 × 3 1/4 in. (108 × 85.1 × 8.3 cm)
Overall: 31 5/8 × 23 1/4 in. (80.3 × 59.1 cm)
Credit Line Gift of Mrs. Nicholas H. Noyes, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 71.40.2

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About this Work

Gustave Caillebotte painted The Yerres, Effect of Rain on his family’s property outside Paris. The composition includes a glimpse of a boat—perhaps Caillebotte’s—just visible on the far shore of the Yerres River. The artist was an avid rower, and canoes, skiffs, and rowboats appear in many of his works. The painting’s vertical format, diagonal lines, and stylized pattern of raindrops also suggest the influence of Japanese woodblock prints, which had been available in France since the early nineteenth century, and were collected by many artists. Their distinctive aesthetic qualities had a strong influence on Impressionism.


1971, Indiana University Art Museum purchase from Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY, with funds from Mrs. Nicholas H. Noyes

by 1971, with Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY [1]

?–ca. 1971, Geneviève Caillebotte Chardeau (1890–1986), the artist’s niece (by descent), Paris, France [2]

1894–?, Martial Caillebotte (1853–1910), the artist’s brother (by descent), Paris, France

1875–1894, Collection of the artist, Gennevilliers (Paris, France)

Notes:

[1] Stock no. 5608, per dealer’s label on verso of the painting’s stretcher bar.

[2] Records from museum registration files indicating that the painting was once part of the “Chardeau collection” refer to the artist’s niece, Geneviève Caillebotte Chardeau, who eventually received most of Caillebotte’s unsold paintings through her father Martial, to whom they had first passed. It is unclear precisely when she inherited the painting, or whether it may first have been passed down to her mother, Marie Caillebotte (born 1854), after Martial’s death.

Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

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"Yerres, Effect of Rain | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2024. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=71.40.2