The Wall of the Kitchen Garden, Yerres"

The Wall of the Kitchen Garden, Yerres (1877) is one of the series of paintings Caillebotte made at the family estate at Yerres, documenting the productive agricultural and domestic spaces of the property with the same seriousness he brought to urban subjects. The kitchen garden wall defines a boundary between the cultivated and the wilder parts of the estate, and its architectural solidity provides a compositional backdrop against which the vegetation grows with informal vigor. The Yerres years produced some of Caillebotte's most intimate and informal works.

The stone or brick wall provides a strong horizontal and vertical architectural element that Caillebotte renders with his characteristic attention to the material qualities of built surfaces. The garden vegetation growing against the wall creates a textural contrast between architectural hardness and organic softness. His perspective management creates a satisfying spatial recession.