Young Man at His Window

A young man in a dark suit stands at a large open window of an upper-storey apartment, his back to the viewer, feet planted apart and hands in his pockets, looking out at a sun-drenched street scene tightly framed by tall, uniform apartment blocks. Far below, a lone woman in fashionable dress is about to cross the street, and horse-drawn carriages complete the urban tableau. Caillebotte painted his brother René at the family’s newly built apartment building on the rue de Lisbonne in the fashionable eighth arrondissement — the Paris created by Haussmann’s rebuilding, in which the painter’s own father had been a major participant. He exhibited the picture at the second Impressionist exhibition of 1876, when he was twenty-seven: his public debut, and — after his famous Floor Scrapers — the work that drew the most critical attention, prompting Edmond Duranty’s landmark essay on the new painting of modern life. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.