Tag Archives: The Floor Scrapers

Gustave Caillebotte and the Second Impressionist Exhibition of 1876.

Gustave Caillebotte, Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrapers), 1875, oil on canvas, 102 x 146.5 cm (40.2 × 57.7 in.). At his death in 1894, Caillebotte bestowed the painting to the Musée du Luxembourg where it was accepted. In 1929, it was transferred to the Musée du Louvre. It was relocated again in 1947 when it was moved to the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume. In 1986 it was brought to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

By John P. Walsh




Rejected by the Salon.

The Impressionists were not purists to their collective cause and to varying degrees many of them if reluctantly exhibited in the French government’s annual exhibition known as the Salon. Despite its attempts at modernism, the Salon remained a conservative venue and while The Floor Scrapers of 1875 was exhibited in the Impressionist show in 1876 it had been rejected by the Salon in the previous year.

Artwork called “vulgar” and “leftist.”



Gustave Caillebotte, Raboteurs de parquets (The Floor Scrapers), 1876, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm (31.5 × 39.375 in.).

Gustave Caillebotte, Jeune homme jouant du piano (Young man Playing the Piano), 1876, oil on canvas, 80 x 166 cm (31.5 x 45.625 in.). Private collection.

Gustave Caillebotte, Déjeuner (Lunch), 1876, oil on canvas, 80 x 166 cm (31.5 x 45.625 in.). Private collection.

Sources: Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist, 1995, Anne Distel, editor.
The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886, 1986, Charles S. Moffett.