Avenue du Bois de Boulogne

Avenue du Bois de Boulogne (1882), held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Reims, is one of De Nittis's several treatments of this fashionable Parisian thoroughfare. Where his 1874 panel captured the subject as an outdoor study, this 1882 canvas represents a more considered, finished treatment of the same location, reflecting his continuing engagement with the topography of bourgeois Parisian leisure across nearly a decade of residence in the city. The avenue had been created by Haussmann as an approach to the redesigned Bois de Boulogne, and by the 1880s it was among the most prestigious addresses in Paris, used daily for the ceremonial promenade of carriages, equestrians, and fashionable pedestrians. De Nittis's repeated returns to this subject demonstrate its importance as both social and compositional motif in his practice.

The 1882 canvas shows De Nittis's mature technique for avenue scenes: strong perspectival recession along the tree-lined corridor with animated foreground figures and dissolution of further figures and trees into atmospheric haze. The palette balances fashionable dress against greens and sky.