The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Full conservation statement
  In this black chalk drawing Caillebotte captured his friend’s physique and posture with a high degree of naturalism and finesse. He used broad gestural marks to outline and shade and expertly describe the subject’s movement, form, and attitude. A range of expressive hatch lines, return strokes, and scribbles pull the figure’s clothing more snugly across the back of his body and create tugs in his pant leg to palpably convey the hands-in-pocket gesture. This sensitive observation and nuanced handling of materials also describes the figure’s hyperextended legs. Yet for all its exactitude, the gist of this drawing style is ease of execution and unconcern for perfection, a nonchalance that is reinforced by small passages of incidental media smudging that read as part of the drawing process. Vestiges of erasing are also seen in the background, where presumably the artist went back in to clean up smudged media residues.
  
  The study just fits from top to bottom on the (more textured) wire side of a half sheet of laid paper. Vigorous chalk applications and reinforced strokes feature prominently, yet flecks of white paper interrupt the black marks throughout in a fine scrim pattern determined by the "laid and chain" paper texture. This “pointillist” quality enlivened drawings and made these mid- to late-19th-century laid papers highly desirable for working in dry, powdery (black) media. The paper’s orientation places the laid lines in a horizontal direction, a direction that some artists favored for most effectively trapping the dry black media and accentuating the fine ribbed laid texture. More subtle are the (white) widely spaced chain lines which provide plumb lines that firmly center the figure on a vertical axis.
  
  The paper type is modern laid and a partial watermark MBM, along the top edge, tells us the paper is Arches Ingres MBM developed by the Arches paper mill in 1869. According to the Arches website, the Arches mill did not start making paper on the cylinder mold machine until 1895 which puts this drawing from 1893 on a handmade paper.
• Provenance
  1893-1894

  Studio of the artist [1848–1894]

  1894-1989

  by descent to his family

  1989

  (Brame & Lorenceau, Paris, sold to the Josefowitz Collection, Lausanne)

  1989-2020

  (Josefowitz Collection, Lausanne, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)

  2020-

  Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
• Citations
  Berhaut, Marie. Gustave Caillebotte, sa vie et son œuvre: Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels. Paris: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1978. Mentioned: p. 232

  Chardeau, Jean. Les Dessins de Caillebotte. Paris: Hermé, 1989. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 112.

  Gustave Caillebotte, 1848–1894: Dessins, études, peintures. Exh. cat. Paris: Brame & Loreanceau, 1989. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 28, no. H.

  Berhaut, Marie. Gustave Caillebotte: Catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels. Rev. ed. Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 1994. Mentioned: p. 248

  Gustave Caillebotte, 1848–1894: Dessins, pastels et peintures. Exh. cat. Paris: Brame & Lorenceau, 1998. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 126-27, no. 75.

  Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist in Modern Paris. Exh. cat. Tokyo: Bridgestone Museum of Art, 2013. Mentioned: p. 266, no. 57; Reproduced: p. 167.

  Bocquillon, Marina Ferretti. Caillebotte, peintre et jardinier. Exh. cat. Giverny: Musée des impressionismes, 2016. Mentioned: pp. 52, 148, no. 2; Reproduced: p. 52.
• Exhibition History
  Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023).

  Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 11, 2022-January 8, 2023).

  Caillebotte, peintre et jardinier. Musée des impressionnismes, Giverny (March 25–July 3, 2016); Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (July 19–October 30, 2016).

  Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist in Modern Paris. Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo (October 10–December 29, 2013).

  Gustave Caillebotte, 1848–1894: Dessins, pastels et peintures. Brame & Lorenceau, Paris (October 15–November 27, 1998).

  Gustave Caillebotte, 1848–1894: Dessins, études, peintures. Brame & Lorenceau, Paris (February 28–March 24, 1989).
• Cite this Page
  {{cite web|title=Study of a Man with Hands in His Pockets|url=false|author=Gustave Caillebotte|year=1893|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}