The luxury restaurant on the boulevard des Italiens whose upper rooms housed the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition in 1886 — the one Camille Pissarro helped organise, and where he brought the Neo-Impressionists into the group.
The Maison Dorée was one of the great restaurants of the Grands Boulevards, a byword for Second Empire luxury. In 1886 its first floor was rented for an art exhibition, and what went up there ended an era.
The eighth Impressionist exhibition ran from 15 May to 15 June 1886, and Camille Pissarro was central to it. He helped secure and organise the show, and he insisted on bringing in the younger Neo-Impressionists — Seurat, whose Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was shown there, and Signac, along with his own son Lucien. That insistence split the group. Monet, Renoir and Sisley stayed away.
It was the last of the eight. Pissarro is the only artist who exhibited in every one, from Nadar's studio on the boulevard des Capucines in 1874 to this room twelve years later — which is a fair measure of how much of Impressionism as an organised project was his doing rather than anyone else's.
The restaurant is long gone. When the site was redeveloped, three of the historic façades were preserved by requirement, so the boulevard frontage still reads as the nineteenth century even though there is a bank behind it.
Pissarro exhibits in the first Impressionist exhibition at Nadar's studio.
The eighth and last exhibition opens at the Maison Dorée on 15 May, closing 15 June.
On the first floor of the Maison Dorée restaurant, 1 rue Laffitte on the boulevard des Italiens, from 15 May to 15 June 1886.
Pissarro insisted on including the Neo-Impressionists — Seurat, Signac and his own son Lucien. Monet, Renoir and Sisley declined to take part.
Three historic façades, preserved by requirement when the site was redeveloped for a bank. The restaurant and the exhibition rooms are gone.
Pissarro helped secure and organise the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition, held above the Maison Doree from 15 May to 15 June 1886, and insisted on including the Neo-Impressionists. He is the only artist who exhibited in all eight.
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 placePaul 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.
Visit the placeThe 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 placeThe vanished hotel on the corner of the rue Drouot and the Grands Boulevards where Camille Pissarro took a large room in February 1897 and painted sixteen canvases of the boulevards below without moving.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.