Gustave Caillebotte (Born 1848) was born in Parish. His father was a judge at the Seine department's Tribunal de Commerce and was also inherited the family's military textile business. Caillebotte was born on rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, and lived on that street until 1866 when his father built a home on rue de Miromesnil. From 1860, the Caillebotte family began spending many of their summers in Yerres, a town about 12 miles south of Paris on the Yerres River. It was around this time that Caillebotte probably began to paint and draw. In 1868, Caillebotte earned a law degree, and in 1870 he was licensed to practice law. Shortly afterwards, Caillebotte was enlisted in the military to fight in the Franco-Prussian war. He served in the Garde Nationale Mobile de la Seine. After the war, he began visiting the studio of Leon Bonnat (painter), where he began to study painting seriously.
Caillebotte developed an accomplished style in a relatively short period of time and had his first studio in his parents' home. Around 1874, the artist met and befriended several artists who were working outside the official French Academy, including Giuseppe de Nittis and Edgar Degas, and attended the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874 - but he did not participate. Caillebotte painted many familial and domestic scenes, portraits and interiors. Many of his paintings depict members of his family. His style was strongly influenced by his Impressionist associates but it belongs to the School of Realism. Caillebotte strived to paint reality as he saw it and as it existed, hoping to reduce the inherent theatricality of painting.
