A man with a top hat puts on his oar: the townsman has taken off his jacket over his waistcoat, sits leaning back rowing in a boat, captured in an impressionistic momentary way, but with realistic attention to detail from the perspective of his counterpart in the boat, which is on the Yerres river to the south from Paris: Gustave Caillebotte painted this picture, "La partie de bateau", in 1877/78.
Ursula Scheer
Editor in the Feuilleton.
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In order for the French state to be able to afford the work, which is classified as a national treasure, and incorporate it into the Musée d'Orsay, it also needed a second person on board.
The luxury group LVMH, headed by the mega collector Bernard Arnault, enabled the purchase of the painting, which was valued at 43 million euros;
the investment limit of the museum is three million.
The picture was sold by the heirs of Caillebotte, who at first found recognition less as an artist than as a collector and patron.
With the wealth that was available to the son of an entrepreneur, who was born in Paris in 1848, he early on supported exhibitions by the Impressionists and acquired numerous of their works, which he bequeathed to the Republic of France.
The "Collection Caillebotte" forms the basis of the Musée d'Orsay.
"La partie de bateau" will be presented in several French museums in the coming months.
It is the second important work by Caillebotte that was transferred from the art trade from private ownership to a museum within a relatively short period of time: in November 2021, Christie's in New York had the rear view of the "Jeune homme à la fenêtre" from 1876 from the Cox Collection dem Getty Museum sold for $46 million, becoming the artist's most expensive painting ever sold at auction.