The Metropolitan Museum: A Window into the Art of Paris

Paris is one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world. It is known for its fashion, art, food, and wine. Some of the most famous artists in the world have lived and worked in Paris, including Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh. Paris is a historic city with a rich cultural heritage. This is reflected in the artworks from Paris that are housed in The Metropolitan Museum. They provide a glimpse into the long and varied history of Paris, and the many different cultures that have shaped it.

The Garden of the Tuileries on a Winter Afternoon

    In December 1898 Pissarro wrote from Paris that he had "engaged an apartment at 204 rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries, with a superb view of the garden, the Louvre to the left, in the background the houses on the quays behind the trees, to the right the Dôme des Invalides, and the steeples of Sainte-Clotilde behind clumps of chestnut trees. It's very beautiful. I shall have a fine to paint."
    During the following winter and spring he painted eight cityscapes looking toward the Louvre, and six, like this one, of the Tuileries Gardens with Sainte-Clotilde in the background.

View of the Seine

    The artist made about seventy oil studies on small wood panels, which he called croquetons.
    These boards were easily transported and held in the hand, making them ideal for painting outdoors.
    This is among the earliest of the studies that Seurat made along the Seine River on the outskirts of Paris.

Chrysanthemums in the Garden at Petit-Gennevilliers

    Caillebotte's interest in floral subjects did not develop until the 1880s.
    This work of 1893 depicts flowers that he cultivated on his property at Petit-Gennevilliers.
    Chrysanthemums were hugely popular in France, celebrated for their resplendent colors and associations with East Asia.

The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning

    After spending six years in rural Éragny, Pissarro returned to Paris, where he painted several series of the grands boulevards.
    Surveying the view from his lodgings at the Grand Hôtel de Russie in early 1897, Pissarro marveled that he could "see down the whole length of the boulevards" with "almost a bird's-eye view of carriages, omnibuses, people, between big trees, big houses that have to be set straight."
    From February through April, he recorded - in two scenes of the boulevard des Italiens to the right, and fourteen of the boulevard Montmartre to the left - the spectacle of urban life as it unfolded below his window.

The Funeral

    Manet's unfinished painting is thought to depict the funeral of the writer Charles Baudelaire, which took place on September 2, 1867.
    The artist, unlike other friends who had yet to return from vacation or stayed away owing to the threatening summer storm, was among the few mourners present.
    This view of the meager funeral cortège at the foot of the Butte Mouffetard, a hill in southwest Paris, is framed by the silhouettes of the towers and cupolas of the Val de Grâce, the Panthéon, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, and the Tour de Clovis in the background.