A Delightful Window Into Caillebotte Brothers' Private World .

Photo:'Rower in a Top Hat' (1877-1878) by Gustave Caillebotte.

By JUDY FAYARD. The Wall Street Journal

PARIS—Gustave and Martial Caillebotte were born into a large, wealthy Parisian family in the mid-19th century, just as the city was in the ferment of transformation: Baron Haussmann was turning medieval streets into wide boulevards, steam trains revolutionized travel and the Impressionists were upsetting the art world's academic applecart.

Free from financial cares, the brothers picked their own pursuits. Gustave chose art from the outset, not only joining the Impressionists but buying their works and often supporting them with loans; on the side, he was a philatelist, a yachtsman and boat designer, and, like his friend Monet, a passionate gardener. Martial, a pianist and composer, later discovered photography. They spent much time together, and what Gustave painted—street scenes, family life, bridges and trains, sailing and canoeing—Martial photographed. With some 35 paintings, many from private collections, and 150 family photos, "The Private World of the Caillebotte Brothers" at the Musée Jacquemart-André is the first joint exhibit of their work, offering a delightful window on their privileged Parisian scene.

Displayed in small themed galleries, with one huge photo blowup papering a wall in each room, Gustave's large paintings are perfectly in tandem with Martial's small sepia-toned snapshots, clustered in white-matted frames as if on the pages of a family album. (Because the originals are extremely fragile, the photo prints are new.)

Gustave's 1880 "A Balcony," with two gentlemen looking down over a tree-lined street, is repeated in Martial's 1889 self-portrait photo "Me on the Balcony." Gustave's 1877 "Building Painters," on ladders doing a shopfront, is echoed by Martial's 1891 workmen on ladders tending a street lamp.

It's too bad that a few more of Gustave's best works aren't on show—the big "Paris Street, Rainy Day," with its well-dressed couple under an umbrella, or the unique "The Floor Scrapers"—but there are more than enough to enchant visitors, including the "Rower in a Top Hat," "The Canoers," with its oddly cut-off point of view, and "Portraits in the Country," four beautifully dressed women at their needlework on a dappled spring day.

Until July 11

www.musee-jacquemart- andre.com