Drying laundry at the bank of the Seine, Petit Gennevilliers

Painted in 1888 at Petit-Gennevilliers, the riverside property where Caillebotte settled after gradually leaving Paris, this laundry scene represents the domestic rhythms of life on the Seine that absorbed him in his final decade. Caillebotte had purchased land at Petit-Gennevilliers in 1881, designing his garden and boatyard, and the motifs of working women, hanging linen, and riverbank activity became a recurring subject. Now held at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, the work shows his mature Impressionist manner: attentive to ordinary labour, compositionally direct, and rooted in lived observation rather than urban spectacle.

The brushwork is fluid and economical, with broad strokes defining the linen and foliage. The palette balances bright whites against the green riverbank, with the Seine's cool blues providing tonal depth. Light is diffuse rather than dramatic.