@hollyr.eth
Framedl 2026-10-06 1/6*
Gustave Caillebotte, 'Paris Street; Rainy Day'
In 1876, Gustave Caillebotte, about 28 years old and shaken by his brother's early death, wrote a will to bequeath his collection to the French state: Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Cézanne, Manet. Paintings bought from friends when nobody else would pay. He died in 1894.
The state wasn't eager to say yes. The academy protested, officials stalled, and in the end they accepted about forty of the sixty-plus works and turned the rest away.
What they reluctantly kept is now the heart of the Musée d'Orsay. A gift that the world wasn't ready to receive.
Tough hint but luck was on my side today: @croth.eth
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