[Horse] Chestnut Blossom for Easter

On a gorgeous, mostly sunny day we took an outing to the Propriété Caillebotte in Yerres, less than an hour outside of Paris. It's a large park comprising the property which the painter Gustave Caillebotte's family owned from 1860 to 1879. It was acquired by the town of Yerres in 1973 and has since been slowly developed as a museum devoted to Caillebotte. It is currently showing a wonderful exhibition devoted to works that he painted on the property and in the immediate surroundings

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), although a leading impressionist painter, was unique among them for his wealth, which he used generously to support many of his impressionist colleagues. His style is distinctive, generally more realistic than the movement. He's a favorite of mine, and the day was a real treat. The park is gorgeous, with plantings of tulips and other flowers which in a minor way echo those of the Keukenhof in Holland. But my shots didn't really do the park justice, so I'm taking a rare opportunity to blip a low-hanging chestnut flower :)

My ornithologist friend emailed: "You have identified a horse chestnut as a chestnut. There is no problem unless you go to eat the fruits--delicious in the case of chestnuts, poisonous in the case of horse chestnuts!"

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