Paul Gauguin
A Paul Gauguin address in the 9th during the years when he was painting as an amateur and collecting Cezanne, Pissarro, Manet, Degas and Monet on a broker's income.
15 rue La Bruyère
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
A Paul Gauguin address in the 9th arrondissement during the years when he was still a stockbroker, painting on Sundays and quietly assembling one of the better private Impressionist collections in Paris.
- 15 rue La Bruyère, 75009 Paris
- A Gauguin address during his years as a broker and collector
The place, briefly
Paul Gauguin kept several addresses in the 9th, the quarter he had been born into, and this was one of them during the stretch when he was earning well and buying pictures.
The collecting is the part that gets underplayed. On a broker's income he acquired Cézanne, Pissarro, Manet, Degas and Monet — not as an investor but as someone who wanted to look at them daily, and who was learning from them at close range. When the money went after 1882 the collection was gradually sold off to live on, which is its own small tragedy.
He is a few streets from where he was born and a few more from his guardian Gustave Arosa's house on the rue Henri-Monnier. Gauguin's Paris, before he abandoned it, was a very small piece of the 9th arrondissement.
Key facts
- His stockbroking years
- Painting as an amateur and collecting Impressionists
- Cézanne, Pissarro, Manet, Degas, Monet — later sold to survive
- Private — exterior only
Timeline
Gauguin collects Impressionist paintings on his Bourse income.
The collection is sold off piece by piece as money runs out.
On the map
Questions before you go
Did Gauguin collect other painters?
Seriously. On his stockbroker's salary he owned works by Cézanne, Pissarro, Manet, Degas and Monet, and sold them off gradually after he lost his income.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
56 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette
The house where Paul Gauguin was born on 7 June 1848, months before the family fled France for Peru — a departure that killed his father and shaped everything that came after.
Visit the place5 rue Henri-Monnier
The house of Gustave Arosa — businessman, photographer and collector — who became Paul Gauguin's guardian, found him his job at the Bourse, and owned the Delacroix, Courbet and Pissarro canvases that started him painting.
Visit the place28 place Saint-Georges
The first home Paul Gauguin shared with his Danish wife Mette Gad after their marriage in 1873, on a handsome small square — the address of a successful stockbroker rather than a painter.
Visit the place
The Flea Pit
The vanished café at the La Bruyère and Pigalle corner where Black musicians and performers gathered, and where Langston Hughes watched Sonya hide beneath their table.
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.