Sailboats at Anchor on the Seine, in Argenteuil

Caillebotte painted the Seine at Argenteuil from many angles and in many moods throughout the 1880s. This canvas of sailboats at anchor from 1883 — held at McMaster — captures a moment of stillness on what was otherwise the most active boating river in France. Argenteuil's regatta culture attracted Parisians every summer, and Caillebotte was among the most passionate participants, designing and racing his own yachts. His sailing pictures have a technical authenticity absent from Monet's more poetic treatments of the same scene — he knew exactly how boats were rigged and how they sat in the water, and this knowledge gives his river canvases a specific, documentary quality.

Masts and rigging create vertical and diagonal accents against a luminous sky. The water below reflects hull shapes in horizontal brushwork with occasional flickers of impasto highlight. Caillebotte balances the structural geometry of the boats with the softer optical effects of river light.