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Office · Opéra (1st) · 1er arrondissement

28 avenue de l'Opéra

The buildingStill standing
Getting inOutside only
What's there nowCommercial premises

The rooms used for the 1879 exhibition are long gone and the building is in commercial use. Nothing marks it.

The unfinished building where Gustave Caillebotte organised, hung and largely paid for the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879 — the year the group nearly fell apart.

Address
28 avenue de l'Opéra, 75001 Paris
Years
Site of the fourth Impressionist exhibition, 1879
IllustrationBright color present-day view of the pale stone corner building at 28 avenue de l'Opéra

A close contemporary architectural view in clear daylight, with genericized shopfronts and invented pedestrians.

Editorial illustration

The place, briefly

By 1879 the independent exhibitions were in trouble. Renoir had gone back to the Salon, Cézanne and Sisley had dropped out, Monet was wavering, and the group's finances were poor. The fourth exhibition happened largely because Gustave Caillebotte made it happen.

He took a set of rooms in an unfinished building on the newly cut avenue de l'Opéra, organised the logistics, curated the hang, and covered costs. He also exhibited his own interiors and boulevard views in it. Degas was the other driving force, and the two of them held the thing together against a group that was actively dissolving.

It worked commercially — the 1879 show turned a profit and drew large numbers — which is a useful corrective to the story of Impressionism as uninterrupted rejection.

The building stands on a busy commercial stretch and is unmarked.

Key facts

What happened here
The fourth Impressionist exhibition, 1879
Caillebotte's role
Organised it, hung it, and paid for much of it
Who had dropped out
Renoir, Cézanne and Sisley, that year
The outcome
A commercial success, unusually for the series
Access
Nothing survives; exterior only

In images

The standing commercial building at the corner address; the 1879 exhibition rooms do not survive.Editorial illustration
A close contemporary architectural view in clear daylight, with genericized shopfronts and invented pedestrians.Editorial illustration
Historically informed reconstruction of the exhibition entrance on the newly cut avenue de l'Opéra.Artistic reconstruction
The exact temporary entrance, street activity and colors are interpretive; no known exhibitor is depicted.Artistic reconstruction
The busy present-day avenue supplies the urban context for the otherwise unmarked address.Editorial illustration
A plausible main room with temporary picture rails and unfinished trim; all visitors and canvases are anonymous inventions.Artistic reconstruction
A closer evidence-led reconstruction of the temporary rooms; no identifiable Impressionist work is reproduced.Artistic reconstruction

Timeline

  1. 1879

    Caillebotte organises and funds the fourth Impressionist exhibition here.

On the map

Questions before you go

What was the fourth Impressionist exhibition?

The 1879 group show, held in rooms at 28 avenue de l'Opéra. Caillebotte organised, hung and largely financed it while several of the original exhibitors were dropping away.

Was it a failure?

No — it drew crowds and turned a profit, which cuts against the usual account of the Impressionist exhibitions as uniformly rejected.

People who knew this place

Illustrated portrait of Gustave Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte

French · Painter

Caillebotte took rooms in an unfinished building on the avenue de l'Opera for the fourth Impressionist exhibition of 1879, organising, hanging and largely financing it, and exhibiting in it himself.

Within walking distance

The Passage Choiseul in color — shopfronts and glass roof along the covered gallery

Street · Passages couverts

Passage Choiseul

The covered arcade where Louis-Ferdinand Céline grew up over his mother's lace shop — reborn in his novel Death on the Installment Plan as the Passage des Bérésinas, the gaslit 'gas jar' of its narrator Ferdinand's childhood.

Visit the place
The school at 6 rue de Louvois today, pale brick and stone with the tricolore over its doorway

School · Passages couverts

École du Square Louvois

The municipal school Louis-Ferdinand Céline attended from 1900 to 1905, two minutes' walk from the family shop in the Passage Choiseul — the first classroom of the boy then registered as Louis-Ferdinand Destouches.

Visit the place
The Grand Véfour dining room in colour, its painted panels, mirrors and red banquettes

Restaurant · Palais-Royal

Le Grand Véfour

The Palais-Royal restaurant Colette favored in her last years, a few doors from her apartment. A brass plaque still marks her seat.

Visit the place
The Café Napolitain in soft evening light, empty chairs in ranks beneath the awning and the Haussmann façade above

Café · Grands Boulevards

Café Napolitain

The boulevard terrace where the novel opens — an apéritif on the Right Bank, watching the evening crowd, the electric signs, and the last horse-cabs go by.

Visit the place
References

References

The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document 28 avenue de l'Opéra, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.

  1. 1Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye — National Gallery of Art

    Website
    National Gallery of Art, Washington
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 28 avenue de l'Opéra page.

    View source

  2. 2Le legs Caillebotte (Fanny Matz) — Musée d'Orsay magazine, October 2024

    Website
    Musée d'Orsay
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 28 avenue de l'Opéra page.

    View source

  1. 3Gustave Caillebotte — Encyclopaedia Britannica

    Website
    Encyclopaedia Britannica
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 28 avenue de l'Opéra page.

    View source

  2. 4Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men — exhibition presentation, Musée d'Orsay

    Website
    Musée d'Orsay
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 28 avenue de l'Opéra page.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.

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