Skip to main content

The Bezique Game

1880

Gustave Caillebotte


An active member of the Impressionist movement and participant in its exhibitions, Gustave Caillebotte (1848−1894) also collected works by his friends, many of which he then left to public collections in France.

While the game of cards is a common subject of Flemish genre painting, Caillebotte endows it here with the monumental dimension of a history painting while deliberately embedding it in the modernity of his time. The Bezique Game was first shown at the seventh Impressionist exhibition in 1882 and appeared first in the catalogue. Continuing his depictions of fashionable pastimes of the period like rowing, which he practised himself, Caillebotte painted his friends in the setting of the luxurious apartment on Boulevard Haussmann that he shared with his brother, the composer Martial Caillebotte, who is shown on the right smoking a pipe.

Artwork Details

Artist: Gustave Caillebotte
Title: The Bezique Game
Geography: Paris, France
Date: 1880

Medium: oil on canvas

Classification: graphic arts (drawing, painting, engraving, calligraphy)
Dimensions: 125.3 x 165.6 x 3.4 cm
Inventory number: LAD 2009.036
Contact for images : [email protected]
Permalink : www.louvreabudhabi.ae/en/Explore/Highlights-of-the-collection/bezique-game

Mobile View None For an optimal experience please
rotate your device to portrait mode