Camille Pissarro
Pissarro rented a large apartment at 204 rue de Rivoli for the first half of 1899 and painted at least six views of the Jardin des Tuileries from its windows.
204 rue de Rivoli
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The apartment Camille Pissarro took for the first half of 1899, facing the Jardin des Tuileries — at least six versions of the garden came out of its windows, sorted by weather, hour and season.
- 204 rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris
- Pissarro rented a large apartment here in the first half of 1899
The place, briefly
Camille Pissarro rented a large apartment at 204 rue de Rivoli for the first half of 1899, and did there what he had done on the boulevard Montmartre two years earlier: took one view and worked it repeatedly.
The view was the Jardin des Tuileries, seen from above and across, with the roofs of the Louvre closing the far side. At least six canvases of the garden survive from the stay, varied by season, weather and time of day rather than by subject. Winter afternoons, bare trees, wet gravel, the pattern of the parterres.
The arcaded rue de Rivoli was itself a nineteenth-century imposition on the old city, and the apartment sat directly above the arcade with the garden opposite — an almost ideal arrangement for a painter who wanted a permanent, elevated, weatherproof viewpoint.
One caution worth keeping. The Metropolitan Museum's records establish the address and what he painted from it. They do not establish that the building standing today is the same fabric he rented, so this record pins the address rather than claiming the walls.
Key facts
- The first half of 1899
- The Jardin des Tuileries, in at least six versions
- One view, varied by weather, hour and season
- The address is documented; the building's continuity is not established here
- Private — exterior only
Timeline
Pissarro rents the apartment and paints the Tuileries series in the first half of the year.
On the map
Questions before you go
What did Pissarro paint from 204 rue de Rivoli?
The Jardin des Tuileries, in at least six canvases made during the first half of 1899, varied by weather, season and time of day.
Is it the same building today?
The address and the view are documented by the Metropolitan Museum. Whether the present structure is the identical building has not been confirmed here, so the record claims the address, not the fabric.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
Le Meurice
A grand hotel on the rue de Rivoli facing the Tuileries, and the Paris address [Salvador Dalí](person:salvador-dali) returned to for roughly thirty years — arriving for a month at a time with a retinue, and treating the suite as a studio, a stage and a place to be seen.
Visit the place
Jardin des Tuileries
André Le Nôtre's great axis between the Louvre and the Concorde — the garden every walker in these pages crossed sooner or later, palace or no palace.
Visit the placeHôtel Lotti
A luxury hotel on the rue de Castiglione, between the Tuileries and the place Vendôme. It is the strongest candidate for the "Hotel X" of Down and Out in Paris and London — the vast, filthy basement kitchen where George Orwell worked seventeen-hour days as a plongeur. It trades today as part of the Hôtel Costes.
Visit the placeLa Belle Aurore, Anaïs Nin's houseboat
The houseboat Anaïs Nin rented from the actor Michel Simon on 28 February 1938, moored on the quai des Tuileries near the Pont Royal. She kept it until August, when boats were ordered out of the city and it had to be towed to Neuilly. Photographs of her aboard survive with her 1938 diary.
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.