Caillebotte did make his debut in the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876 showing eight paintings including Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrapers) (1875), his earliest masterpiece. Its subject matter, the depiction of labourers preparing a wooden floor (thought to have been that of the artist's own studio) was considered "vulgar" by some critics and is the probable reason why it was rejected by the Salon of 1875.
