AMSTERDAM.- Following the acquisition of two works by Claude Monet in early 2001 and a seascape by Edouard Manet in the summer of 2002, the Van Gogh Museum has once again enriched its collection with an important late-nineteenth century work. The museum has purchased View from a balcony of 1880 by the Impressionist master Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894). The canvas was acquired with the support of the Sponsor Lottery, the Vereniging Rembrandt(supported by Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds), the VSB Foundation, the Mondriaan Foundation and the Vincent van Gogh Foundation. The purchase price was circa 2.3 million euros, of which around half was financed by the Sponsor Lottery. 

Gustave Caillebotte was an important figure in the Impressionist movement. He took part in five of the eight exhibitions organised by the group between 1874 and 1886. A collector of the work of his friends, he also played a prominent role as a patron. The majority of his impressive collection, which included Manet’s monumental Balcony of 1868/69, is now in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. 

Caillebotte worked in a number of genres, but made his reputation primarily with depictions of contemporary urban life. In his highly original choice of motifs and inventive compositions his work equals that of Edgar Degas. In his early years, too, Caillebotte’s style owed much to the older artist, although he would later develop a more painterly manner closer to that of Claude Monet; at the same time, his palette also grew lighter. View from a balcony is one result of this evolution. 

The canvas belongs to a series of cityscapes painted in 1880 from Caillebotte’s apartment on boulevard Haussmann, where he had moved in 1878. Many Impressionists liked to paint views of the city from a high vantage point, but Caillebotte gave the theme a strong personal note.  

The painting retains all the freshness of a study, although Caillebotte appears to have regarded it as a completed work. The combination of the dizzy view down to the street with the strong decorative grill of the balcony makes this one of the artist’s most remarkable and experimental compositions. The view into depth is countered and broken by the flat patterns of the fence, creating a play between two and three dimensions, and between the real and the abstract, that seems to anticipate the work of early modern artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. 

There are few precedents for such a daring approach in nineteenth-century French art and Caillebotte was probably inspired by Japanese woodblock prints, which show similar decorative concerns. 

The work’s importance has been recognised by a number of important authors. In his standard work on Caillebotte, Kirk Varnedoe for example, wrote in lyrical terms about the painting: "The picture is not only one of the most original conceptions in Caillebotte’s art; it is also a pivot point in the history of painting, standing within one tradition while announcing another". Impressionist scholar Richard Brettell stated categorically: "This boldly painted and brilliantly composed work is one of the most original cityscapes of Paris by any Impressionist painter". 

This recent acquisition forms part of the Van Gogh Museum’s effort to complement the collection with innovative works from the second half of the nineteenth century. For many years, artists of the avant-garde were underrepresented; today, however, the museum owns an oil study on panel by Georges Seurat, an impressive portrait of a woman by Kees van Dongen, two late and three early Monets, and the seascape by Manet purchased last year. Until now, there was no work by Caillebotte in a Dutch public collection. 

The museum acquired View from a balcony from the New York art dealers Wildenstein, who had purchased it from the artist’s family in 1968. The painting will be on display through 8 February 2004 in the print room of the exhibition wing, together with works that elucidate its content and context, such as Japanese prints, pictures by Van Gogh from the collection and two special loans by Camille Pissarro: Rue de l’Epicerie, Rouen, 1898, from a private collection, and The Boulevard Montmartre at night, 1897, from the National Gallery in London.