Gustave Caillebotte radicalised the use of perspective in painting and created a new iconography within Impressionism. His application of an aerial view differed from his plein air contemporaries. ‘Paris, boulevard Haussmann: vue d'un balcon, projet d'éventail’ relates to one of Caillebotte’s most fascinating and celebrated subjects, that of Paris from a balcony. It was a period of seismic change in the city, and Caillebotte was an artist that created a distinctly modern view for a distinctly modern city.

In the mid 1850s, under the instruction of Napoleon III, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, supervised a radical urban renewal of Paris. The small winding streets were raised to the ground and replaced by wide tree lined boulevards, recreational parks and architectural triumphs like the opera house. Public services were also improved by less crowded living conditions, a new sewage system and aqueducts to improve health, and the building of the Garde du Nord railway station to better connect Paris. It was a time of great excitement, with Caillebotte now seen as one of the greatest documenters of this transformation.

‘Paris, boulevard Haussmann: vue d'un balcon, projet d'éventail’ is a study for the 1880 painting ‘Homme au balcon, boulevard Haussmann’. While the view of boulevard Haussmann is the same in the final painting the figure has been moved from the right to the left hand side. The shape of the drawing is a kin to that of a fan, which is fitting given the intense interest in Japanese art at the time. In capturing the city from above Caillebotte shows a new, before unseen, side to it.

Caillebotte’s works from this period and of this subject matter are highly prized. The highest price achieved for a Caillebotte painting at auction was ‘Jeune homme à sa fenêtre’, 1876 which was purchased by the Getty Institute for $53,030,000 .