Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) was born in Paris on 19 August 1848 into a wealthy family whose fortune came from textiles and property. He trained as an engineer before turning to painting and studying at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1874 he met Renoir and Monet, and from 1876 he showed in the Impressionist exhibitions, soon becoming their chief organiser and financial backer. He paid Monet’s rent for months and bought works by Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cézanne, Degas, Sisley and Morisot at a time when few others would.
His own painting is more precise and more daring in composition than that of most of his friends. He is best known for the new boulevards and apartment blocks of Haussmann’s Paris: The Floor Scrapers of 1875, Le Pont de l’Europe of 1876, and above all Paris Street; Rainy Day of 1877, which uses a steep perspective to turn a city crossing into a monumental portrait. He also painted the boating life of the Yerres and the Seine, and men looking out of high windows over the city.
In 1881 he bought a house at Petit-Gennevilliers on the Seine, moved there permanently in 1888, and gave much of his time to gardening and sailing. He died suddenly in his garden on 21 February 1894, aged forty-five. He left his collection to the French state, and when the Caillebotte Room opened at the Luxembourg Palace in 1897 it was the first display of Impressionist paintings in a French museum. The bequest later became the base of the Impressionist collection at the Musée d’Orsay.