Woman Seated on a Red-Flowered Sofa

1882

French, 1848-1894

The subject of this portrait has not been identified. Her clothes are smartly conservative—she might be a family friend or even a housekeeper in the artist’s employ. Caillebotte’s composition emphasizes the woman’s formal, slightly anxious disposition by compressing her head beneath a heavy picture frame and surrounding her body in the rich tones of a parlor.

Caillebotte exhibited with the French Impressionists and was an important early collector of his friends’ paintings. He is best known for dramatically sparse compositions depicting modern city life.

Oil on canvas

31 x 35 in. (78.74 x 88.9 cm)

Framed: 42 x 46 in.

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Prentice Bloedel

91.12

Photo: Paul Macapia

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryParis, France, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), 1951, no. 153.

Paris, France, Caillebotte, "Reunion des Musees Nationaux", Musee d'Orsay, September 13, 1994 - January 9, 1995; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, February 15 - May 28, 1995, no. 76. (09/13/1994 - 05/28/1995)

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Five Installations on the Fourth Floor: Aspects of Late-Nineteenth-Century Art", June 26, 1997 - January 24, 1999.

Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, "Essay on Impressionism", September 18, 1998 - May 1, 1999 (09/18/1998 - 05/01/1999)

Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore Museum of Art, "Impressionism: paintings Collected by European museums", October 6, 1999 - July 30, 2000

Italy, Fondazione Cassamarca, "L'Impressionismo e l'eta di Van Gogh: La rivoluzione di un 'arte nuova", November 2002 - April 2003

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "French Painting from SAM's Permanent Collection", April 23, 2005 - January 2, 2006

Tacoma, Washington, Tacoma Art Museum, Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Their Circle: French Impressionism and the Northwest, Sept. 28, 2019-Jan. 24, 2020.

Published ReferencesSagner, Karin, "Gustave Caillebotte, Neue Perspektiven des Impressionismus." 2009;
p. 132.

Morton, Mary, et al. "Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye." Exh. Cat. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2015; pp. 95-96, reproduced fig. 7 [not in exhibition].

Marrinan, Michael, Gustavr Caillebotte.Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2016; p. 265, reproduced fig. 126.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM