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Impressionist & Modern Art
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3213
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR(Limoges 1841 - 1919 Cagnes-sur-Mer)
La partie de croquet (Enfants dans le jardin
de Montmartre). Circa 1895.
Oil on canvas.
With signature stamp lower left: Renoir.
46.5 x 55.5 cm.
The authenticity of this work has been
confirmed by the Wildenstein Institute,
Paris, 24 September 2007. The work will be
included in the Catalogue critique.
Provenance:
- The Estate of the artist.
- Drouot, 26 April 1926, lot 90.
- Palais Galliéra, 30 May 1967, lot 66.
- Private collection, Switzerland.
Exhibitions:
- Wuppertal 2007, Renoir und die Land-
schaft des Impressionismus, Von der
Heydt Museum, 28 October 2007 - 27
January 2008, p. 102.
- Chemnitz 2011, Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Wie Seide gemalt, Kunstsammlung
Chemnitz, 18 September 2011 - 8 Janu-
ary 2012, p. 154.
Literature:
- Bernheim-Jeune: L'atelier de Renoir, Pa-
ris 1931, vol. 1, plate 26, no. 66 (with ill.).
- Dauberville, Guy Patrice/Dauberville,
Michel: Renoir. Catalogue raisonné des
tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles,
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris 2010, vol. III, no.
2031, p. 188 (with ill.).
“Towards 1883 there was a kind of rupture
in my work. I had come to the end of
Impressionism and reached the conclu-
sion that I could neither paint nor draw.
In a word, I had reached a dead end…”.
(Renoir to Vollard, cit. after H. Grabers, p.
235f.) In the early 1880s, Renoir fell into
a crisis, which led him disengage himself
from his Impressionist style. Thereupon he
travelled to Italy, where he studied closely
the painters of the Renaissance, especially
Raphael. Enthused by their techniques, he
began to introduce new pictorial elements
into his works. He moved closer to the
classical style and again set great store
by the human form and most especially
a finely detailed painting style – which is
easily recognised in “Le Grand Baigneuses”
of 1884.
From the 1890s there was again a break
in Renoir’s work. His painting moved in an
almost opposite direction. He gave up his
recently discovered interest in well-defi-
ned forms and replaced this with almost
blurred contours. The detail and the
three-dimensional quality no longer played
a central role. Rather, from the works in this
period, of which the present painting is an
example, we recognise a longing for artis-
tic freedom. The present work was produ-
ced in the mid 1890s, which is a compara-
tively little-known phase of Renoir’s work.
In 1890 the Renoir family moved to Mont-
marte, where the artist rented a studio in
the Chateau des Brouillard between 1893
and 1895. There the garden served as an
important source of inspiration, around
which various works were produced. The
present work is a fine example of Renoir’s
open air painting, which he used particu-
larly at this time. His model in this respect
was Camille Corot, whom he considered
the greatest of all landscape painters.
Renoir often painted everyday scenes:
women in a garden are a favourite motif for
him, which one encounters again and again
in his work. The present painting exudes,
as in Renoir’s entire oeuvre, a positive and
life-affirming atmosphere, which is cha-
racterised by the loose style and a fleeting
brush stroke. This brushwork brings the
viewer to a closer understanding of how
important it was for Renoir to capture per-
fectly the scene, the colour and the light in
one moment.
The decisive feature of the 1890s is a se-
quence of pictures showing the carefree
and idyllic existence of pretty bourgeois
women and girls in summer dresses and
hats. The connection between man and
nature was very important for Renoir. The
work presented here at auction shows a
group of girls in the garden at Montmartre.
Some are playing croquet, while others
are deep in conversation. In the same
year, Renoir painted “Deux Filettes dans le
Jardin”, which is a detailed extract of the
painting presented here. Which of the two
paintings was produced first and therefore
served as model, is unknown.
CHF 450 000 / 550 000
(€ 416 670 / 509 260)