Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers

Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers from 1893 is one of Caillebotte's last paintings, executed in the garden of his property at Petit Gennevilliers on the outskirts of Paris. Caillebotte was a passionate gardener as well as a painter, and his garden paintings combine the horticultural knowledge of a practical gardener with the compositional sophistication of a trained painter. The dahlias—large, showy flowers that were popular in 19th-century French gardens—are rendered with the close attention to structure and form that distinguishes Caillebotte's approach to every subject, whether a boating scene or a flower garden.

Caillebotte's garden paintings are among his most personal works because they document the garden that he created and maintained himself at Petit Gennevilliers. The dahlias are not just a flower painting but a record of specific horticultural practice—the dahlias that a knowledgeable gardener chose to grow in a specific garden in a specific year. This combination of artistic and horticultural specificity makes the painting uniquely informative about both the Impressionist approach to garden subjects and the actual gardens that inspired them.

Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers is Caillebotte the gardener painting his own garden: the dahlias rendered with the same compositional sophistication that he brought to boating scenes and urban panoramas. The 1893 date makes this one of his last paintings—a passionate gardener's farewell to the garden he created.