Falaise en Normandie by Gustave Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte
1848-1894 | French

Falaise en Normandie

Stamped “G. Caillebotte” (lower left)
Oil on canvas

Gustave Caillebotte was among the most visionary and influential artists of the 19th century. This extraordinary Normandy landscape embodies the artist at his most adventurous and expressive, brimming with rich color and energetic brushwork. Painted circa 1880 during the height of his career, Falaise en Normandie beautifully captures the iconic towering cliffs with the artist's signature brilliance.

Even among his trailblazing Impressionist contemporaries, Caillebotte stood out for his distinctive vision marked by dynamic perspectives and precise details. Here, he perfectly composes the scene to emphasize the pure drama of the Normandy cliffs, with the swirl of rocks in the foreground making the colorful cascade of the cliffs even more towering in the background. Caillebotte also pushes his brushwork to new heights, beautifully layering the thickness of his paint to create the illusion of depth and movement.

By 1880, when Falaise en Normandie was painted, Caillebotte was looking for inspiration beyond the streets of Paris. This masterwork belongs to an important series of works painted during Caillebotte’s transformative summers along the windswept cliffs of Normandy, where he explored landscape painting with exceptional vigor.

More than an artist, Caillebotte was also among the earliest and most important collectors of his fellow Impressionists, acquiring nearly 70 masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Degas and many others. Upon his death, he bequeathed these works to the French state, and they would later serve as the cornerstone of the great Musée d’Orsay’s founding, securing Impressionism’s lasting fame.

Caillebotte's life was tragically short, and the artist created only around 450 paintings in total, with the majority of these in renowned museums and important private collections worldwide, including the Musée d'Orsay, the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and many others. There has also been renewed scholarly and collecting interest in his works in recent years, with several critically acclaimed exhibitions such as the Musée d'Orsay's Caillebotte: Painting Men (2024-25), which traveled to the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Circa 1880

Canvas: 32" high x 25 5/8" wide (81.2 x 65.2 cm)
Frame:

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Provenance:
Estate of the artist
Private collection, France, by descent from the above
Private collection, acquired from the above

Literature:
Marie Berhaut, La Vie et l’oeuvre de Gustave Caillebotte, Paris, 1951, no. 115, illustrated n.p.
Marie Berhaut, Caillebotte, Sa vie et son oeuvre: Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris, 1978, no. 163, illustrated p. 137 (titled Falaise à Villiers-sur-mer and with incorrect dimensions)
Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris, 1994, no. 177, illustrated p. 142 (with incorrect dimensions)

Exhibited:
Lausanne, Fondation de l'Hermitage, Caillebotte au cœur de l'impressionnisme, 2005, no. 51, illustrated in color in the catalogue
Bremen, Kunsthalle Bremen; Copenhagen, Ordrupgaard & Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Gustave Caillebotte, 2008-09, no. 31, illustrated in color in the catalogue (with incorrect dimensions)