Berthe Morisot
Morisot exhibited in the second Impressionist exhibition, held at Paul Durand-Ruel's gallery on the rue Le Peletier in 1876.
Galerie Durand-Ruel, 11 rue Le Peletier
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
Paul Durand-Ruel's gallery, where the second Impressionist exhibition was held in 1876 — the dealer who kept buying the group's work through the years when almost nobody else would.
- 11 rue Le Peletier, 75009 Paris
- Paul Durand-Ruel's gallery; site of the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876
The place, briefly
Paul Durand-Ruel is the reason a number of these painters had careers at all. He bought steadily, at his own considerable financial risk, through decades in which the market for the work barely existed, and he kept doing it when it nearly ruined him. Almost every provenance in this part of the Atlas runs through his stock books.
In 1876 his gallery on the rue Le Peletier housed the second exhibition of the independent group. Berthe Morisot exhibited, as she had in the first. The street is the same one the Salle Le Peletier had stood on until it burned three years earlier — for a short period this was one of the busiest few hundred metres in artistic Paris.
Durand-Ruel's other decisive contribution came later, in 1891, when he gave Claude Monet a room in which to hang fifteen wheat stacks together. That show worked, commercially and critically, and it changed what a painter could do with an exhibition.
The gallery has long gone from this address.
Key facts
- Paul Durand-Ruel, the Impressionists' dealer
- The second Impressionist exhibition was held here
- Exhibited in it
- The Salle Le Peletier, the opera house that burned in 1873
- The gallery is gone; nothing marks the site
Timeline
The second Impressionist exhibition is held at the Durand-Ruel gallery.
Durand-Ruel hangs fifteen of Monet's wheat stacks together in Paris.
On the map
Questions before you go
Where was the second Impressionist exhibition?
At Paul Durand-Ruel's gallery, 11 rue Le Peletier in the 9th arrondissement, in 1876.
Who was Paul Durand-Ruel?
The dealer who supported the Impressionists financially for decades, buying their work through long periods when there was almost no market for it. Most Impressionist provenances pass through his firm.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
Salle Le Peletier
The theatre that housed the Paris Opera until it burned down in 1873. Its stage, rehearsal rooms and subscribers' foyer are the world behind Degas's dancers — and he went on painting it from memory long after it was ash.
Visit the placeOpéra-Comique (Salle Favart)
The Salle Favart, where Debussy's only completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, was first performed on 30 April 1902 — after nearly a decade of work and a dress rehearsal that turned into a public row.
Visit the placeBoussod, Valadon & Cie, 19 boulevard Montmartre
The Boussod, Valadon gallery on the boulevard Montmartre, where Berthe Morisot was given her first solo exhibition in 1892 — at the age of fifty-one, and three years before her death.
Visit the place8 rue Saint-Georges
The house where Edgar Degas was born on 19 July 1834, on a quiet street in the 9th arrondissement — the district he would spend almost his entire life inside.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.