Gustave Caillebotte

A wealthy heir, Caillebotte was both a painter and the Impressionists' most generous patron, buying many of his friends' works and funding their exhibitions.

He left his collection to the French state, which accepted only part of it after much controversy; those works became the core of the Musée d'Orsay's Impressionist holdings. His own paintings were long overlooked until the late twentieth century.