Jean Béraud's Paris Views

Not all painters of modern life adopted the loose brushwork of impressionism. Jean Béraud, younger than either Monet or Renoir, painted the fast pace and isolation of contemporary Paris, but he typically employed the more refined style and finish of Salon painting. Here, Béraud presents a view of the corner of rue du Havre and boulevard
Haussmann. In the background is the facade of the Gare Saint-Lazare. On the right, tarpaulins and colorful posters enliven scaffolding that protects the damaged edifice of the department store, Le Printemps. Described by Émile Zola as a “cathédrale du commerce,” Le Printemps suffered a catastrophic fire in the early morning hours of March 9, 1881. Fortunately, the shopgirls living on upper floors escaped, and only one fatality was recorded. The store was rebuilt and remains, much expanded, at the same
location today.

Le Printemps, which opened in 1865, is one of the world’s oldest department stores (Le Bon Marché, also in Paris, is usually credited with being the first). These new institutions offered women a new public space. They provided lower-class women with respectable work and upper-class women with a socially acceptable destination outside the home. The bustling young woman with hatboxes who crosses Béraud’s picture from the 1880s would have found such an errand commonplace, but her mother probably experienced it as a newfound freedom.

Jean Béraud, Rue du Havre (c1882)

Other Parisian Scenes by Béraud

After Services at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Christmas, 1890

The Boulevard at Night, in front of the Theatre des Varietes

Soirée in the Hotel Caillebotte in der Rue Monceau