Abel-Truchet is best known for his scenes of Belle-Époque Paris, where he painted genre subjects, portraits, cityscapes and landscapes in a loose, Impressionistic style. In fact, our painting is clearly inspired, in both subject and technique, by Monet’s famous Gare Saint-Lazare series of 1877. It has been noted by Ian Kennedy, a recognized expert in the field of train history, that Abel Truchet’s depiction of the Gare Saint-Lazare is near perfect in its accurate rendering of the rails and architectural features of the bustling station. Similar to Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso, Abel Truchet excelled at representing Parisian life set in Montmartre’s picturesque cabarets, including Le Chat Noir and Le Lapin Agile. From 1891, Abel-Truchet exhibited at various official Salons, notably the Salon d’Automne, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and Société des Humoristes, of which he was the founder. In 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, Abel-Truchet joined the First Engineers Regiment and took command of a camouflage unit. He died on the Auxerre battlefield in 1918