Paris (AFP)

It is by a notary phone call that the Musée d'Orsay learned at the beginning of the year that he "inherited" five works by Gustave Caillebotte, famous for his "Planers of parquet", previously held by a descendant of the former butler of the painter.

These three paintings and two pastels were nested for years in an apartment in Levallois, west of Paris, that of Marie-Jeanne Daurelle, great-granddaughter of the master of the impressionist painter's house (1848-1894).

Deceased in December, this octogenarian without heir decided to bequeath all of his property to the Apprentice foundation of Auteuil, with the exception of the five works of Caillebotte that she had always had.

"It's an incredibly touching story that was discreet and a very discreet lady who lived with her works," says the museum director Laurence des Cars, who welcomed the news "with joy".

Thanks to this donation, Orsay, which housed seven works by the painter, almost doubles his collection. "These are not things that could have been offered," says one internally, evoking a set valued at "several million euros".

Emissaries quickly went to Ms. Daurelle's apartment with an auctioneer and discovered these works simply hanging on the wall, as reported by Le Parisien who conducted the investigation and questioned the entourage of the deceased.

Upon the announcement of this legacy, "it was certain that it was Caillebotte's works, they were paintings listed in the catalog raisonné" of the artist, also known to have been a protector of the Impressionists and a huge collector, continues Madame des Cars.

Until this incredible donation, the last work of the painter to be entered in the collections of the State was his "Self-portrait late", acquired by preemption in public sale in 1971.

- Secretly -

This gift to Orsay is all the more "unexpected" that no prior contact had taken place with the Daurelle family. The existence of these paintings was however known since the great retrospective dedicated to the painter at the Grand Palais in 1994-1995 and they had also been lent at exhibitions, the institution emphasizes.

Exhibited from Tuesday in the Impressionist Gallery (Room 31) of the museum, not far from the famous "Planers Floor", these works can be admired by visitors: it is "Tree in bloom", "Portrait of Jean Daurelle (in bust), "Portrait of Jean Daurelle (in foot)") and for pastels, "Portrait of Camille Daurelle" and "Portrait of Camille Daurelle in the park of Yerres".

They had an intimate character for Madame Daurelle, since they were portraits of her great-grandfather and grandfather.

For art lovers, these paintings - where the butler is portrayed as middle-class - reflect their era, says Ms. des Cars, evoking both the recognition of the painter with respect to his employee and the social progress of the family, from the rural world.

Another specificity of these works: the use of pastel as with Degas or Manet for the portraits of children, "perhaps the most precious part of this legacy".

"For us, it is an opportunity to emphasize how much museums depend on generosity", we say in Orsay, already spoiled with the incredible donation of the couple Hays, collectors Texans, fallen in love with French painting of the late nineteenth and early twentieth and under the spell of the Nabis.

After a first donation in 2016, Marlene Hays, now widowed, bequeathed in early July a hundred works, bringing to nearly 300 the number of pieces left to the French museum. Among them, Bonnard, Vuillard and Camille Claudel ...

© 2019 AFP