Lot Essay
Variously published as Mademoiselle Demarsy, Mars or Demarez, the sitter has been identified by Professor François Daulte as Anne-Marie-Joséphine Brochard, an actress well-known in Paris in the 1880s and 1890s. Born in Paris on March 20, 1866, she was just sixteen when this portrait was painted. Raised by her mother, a dressmaker, she joined the Comédie Française one year after this portrait was completed and remained a member of the company until August, 1886. She married shortly afterwards, and continued to perform at other theaters, notably the Porte Saint-Martin, Théatre de la Gaieté and at the Théatre Gymnase, the latter from 1890 to 1896. She died in 1942.
Although this is the only portrait Renoir painted of Mme Brochard, it bears a striking similarity to that of her sister, Mlle Darland, who at the age of eighteen sat for a work that has become one of the artist's most acclaimed. Titled Sur la terrasse (fig. 1), it represents Mlle Darland and an unidentified little girl on the terrace of the Restaurant Fournaise on the island of Chatou, in the Seine. Not only were the sisters alike in their appearance (or Renoir has made them so) but the tentative smile and the clear gaze is identical. The similiarity is reinforced by the angle of the head, even their hats describe the same parabola and everything about the hairline is identical.
We can only speculate that Renoir was so satisfied with the success of Sur la terrasse, which his dealer Durand-Ruel purchased as soon as it was finished, that he sought to reprise the moment a year later and in order to do so tracked down Mlle Darland's sister. He had, after all, told Monet that rather than continue to travel with him and paint out of doors, he was going to stay in Paris and find "the perfect model."
Another of Renoir's unanimously acclaimed masterpieces, Le déjeuner des canotiers (fig. 2), painted just after Sur la terrasse but before Portrait de Mademoiselle Demarsy, contains a hitherto unidentified figure that may well be linked to these portraits of the two sisters. In this remarkable painting, animated by the good cheer of Renoir's friends on a Sunday excursion, there is a solitary languid figure, listening rather than talking, that holds the center stage. Her pose is very much the same as in Portrait de Mademoiselle Demarsy and her features and expression are virtually identical. This charming young woman leaning on the balustrade of the same Restaurant Fournaise talking to Baron Barbier (seen from behind), an ex-cavalry officer and bohemian friend of Renoir's, could very well be the same Mlle Demarsy (Mme Brochard) or, as is perhaps more likely, her sister Mlle Darland.
The kinship betweeen Portrait de Mademoiselle Demarsy and the central figure in Le déjeuner des canotiers is undeniable and even the background for the former is clearly borrowed from the latter, the water visible through the branches of overhanging trees. Instead of leaning on a balustrade, Mlle Demarsy is presented sideways on a chair, her left hand gripping the back of the chair, her right, in a white-trimmed kidskin glove, supporting her head. Wearing a high collared blue dress and more smartly formal than the boating party figure in her nautical blouson, we easily can identify the same gently painted lips, somewhat almond-shaped eyes and rich russett bangs.
Renoir traveled extensively from 1880 through 1883, to North Africa, in the footsteps of Delacroix, and to Italy, as did Ingres, to study the great Renaissance masters and was particularly influenced by Raphael's decorations in the Villa Farnese. During this period he was revising and refining his painting technique, experimenting with new ideas (translucent veils of color over a densely primed ground for instance) while continuing the colloquy with his fellow Impressionists. Just prior to Portrait de Mademoiselle Demarsy he had worked with Cézanne at l'Estaque and witnessed his colleague's attempts to arrive at a tauter pictorial structure.
These encounters helped Renoir sense the possibility of
reconciling in painting the contingent with the permanent:
that in nudes or landscape the study of outdoor light and
colour could be gaged on to a clear formal structure without
dislocating it; and that informal everyday scenes could be
re-created in more permanent, traditional forms, and timeless
themes re-vitalized by direct observation. This synthesis
became the focus of his quest as a painter, but he found no
easy solutions: over a decade of experimentation with techniques
and methods lay ahead of him, during which the rival claims
of direct observation and traditional forms, of open-air
painting and studio work, at times seemed irreconcilable....
In technique, composition and subject matter Renoir was
deliberately moving away from any suggestion of the fleeting
or the contingent, away from the impressionist preoccupation
with the captured instant, towards a more timeless vision of
woman within nature. (J. House, exh. cat., Renoir, Hayward
Gallery, London, 1985, pp. 220 and 242)
This work has only had two private owners. The Harriman family acquired it from M. Knoedler & Co., Inc. in 1929 and that firm received it from the dealer Paul Cassirer, who purchased it from Renoir's great patron Paul Gallimard.
Bibliophile and bon vivant, Gallimard purchased the first of his extensive collection of works by Renoir in 1891. He and the artist spent much time together in that decade, traveling to visit Spain in 1892. Gallimard owned the Théatre des Variétés in Paris, which became a source of inspiration for Renoir.
The distinguished Impressionist critic Louis Vauxcelles singled out this work for special praise and distinction when writing about the Gallimard Collection in 1908:
The second manner, related to the works of Manet and Monet,
where the flat tone in the Japanese style is replaced by
hatchings of massed colors placing the tones of the spectrum
side by side is seen here in the portrait of Madame Demarsy,
radiant as a bouquet. (L. Vauxcelles, op.cit.)
(fig. 1) Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Sur la terrasse, 1881, The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis L. Coburn Memorial Collection
(fig. 2) Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le déjeuner des canotiers, 1880-81, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Although this is the only portrait Renoir painted of Mme Brochard, it bears a striking similarity to that of her sister, Mlle Darland, who at the age of eighteen sat for a work that has become one of the artist's most acclaimed. Titled Sur la terrasse (fig. 1), it represents Mlle Darland and an unidentified little girl on the terrace of the Restaurant Fournaise on the island of Chatou, in the Seine. Not only were the sisters alike in their appearance (or Renoir has made them so) but the tentative smile and the clear gaze is identical. The similiarity is reinforced by the angle of the head, even their hats describe the same parabola and everything about the hairline is identical.
We can only speculate that Renoir was so satisfied with the success of Sur la terrasse, which his dealer Durand-Ruel purchased as soon as it was finished, that he sought to reprise the moment a year later and in order to do so tracked down Mlle Darland's sister. He had, after all, told Monet that rather than continue to travel with him and paint out of doors, he was going to stay in Paris and find "the perfect model."
Another of Renoir's unanimously acclaimed masterpieces, Le déjeuner des canotiers (fig. 2), painted just after Sur la terrasse but before Portrait de Mademoiselle Demarsy, contains a hitherto unidentified figure that may well be linked to these portraits of the two sisters. In this remarkable painting, animated by the good cheer of Renoir's friends on a Sunday excursion, there is a solitary languid figure, listening rather than talking, that holds the center stage. Her pose is very much the same as in Portrait de Mademoiselle Demarsy and her features and expression are virtually identical. This charming young woman leaning on the balustrade of the same Restaurant Fournaise talking to Baron Barbier (seen from behind), an ex-cavalry officer and bohemian friend of Renoir's, could very well be the same Mlle Demarsy (Mme Brochard) or, as is perhaps more likely, her sister Mlle Darland.
The kinship betweeen Portrait de Mademoiselle Demarsy and the central figure in Le déjeuner des canotiers is undeniable and even the background for the former is clearly borrowed from the latter, the water visible through the branches of overhanging trees. Instead of leaning on a balustrade, Mlle Demarsy is presented sideways on a chair, her left hand gripping the back of the chair, her right, in a white-trimmed kidskin glove, supporting her head. Wearing a high collared blue dress and more smartly formal than the boating party figure in her nautical blouson, we easily can identify the same gently painted lips, somewhat almond-shaped eyes and rich russett bangs.
Renoir traveled extensively from 1880 through 1883, to North Africa, in the footsteps of Delacroix, and to Italy, as did Ingres, to study the great Renaissance masters and was particularly influenced by Raphael's decorations in the Villa Farnese. During this period he was revising and refining his painting technique, experimenting with new ideas (translucent veils of color over a densely primed ground for instance) while continuing the colloquy with his fellow Impressionists. Just prior to Portrait de Mademoiselle Demarsy he had worked with Cézanne at l'Estaque and witnessed his colleague's attempts to arrive at a tauter pictorial structure.
These encounters helped Renoir sense the possibility of
reconciling in painting the contingent with the permanent:
that in nudes or landscape the study of outdoor light and
colour could be gaged on to a clear formal structure without
dislocating it; and that informal everyday scenes could be
re-created in more permanent, traditional forms, and timeless
themes re-vitalized by direct observation. This synthesis
became the focus of his quest as a painter, but he found no
easy solutions: over a decade of experimentation with techniques
and methods lay ahead of him, during which the rival claims
of direct observation and traditional forms, of open-air
painting and studio work, at times seemed irreconcilable....
In technique, composition and subject matter Renoir was
deliberately moving away from any suggestion of the fleeting
or the contingent, away from the impressionist preoccupation
with the captured instant, towards a more timeless vision of
woman within nature. (J. House, exh. cat., Renoir, Hayward
Gallery, London, 1985, pp. 220 and 242)
This work has only had two private owners. The Harriman family acquired it from M. Knoedler & Co., Inc. in 1929 and that firm received it from the dealer Paul Cassirer, who purchased it from Renoir's great patron Paul Gallimard.
Bibliophile and bon vivant, Gallimard purchased the first of his extensive collection of works by Renoir in 1891. He and the artist spent much time together in that decade, traveling to visit Spain in 1892. Gallimard owned the Théatre des Variétés in Paris, which became a source of inspiration for Renoir.
The distinguished Impressionist critic Louis Vauxcelles singled out this work for special praise and distinction when writing about the Gallimard Collection in 1908:
The second manner, related to the works of Manet and Monet,
where the flat tone in the Japanese style is replaced by
hatchings of massed colors placing the tones of the spectrum
side by side is seen here in the portrait of Madame Demarsy,
radiant as a bouquet. (L. Vauxcelles, op.cit.)
(fig. 1) Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Sur la terrasse, 1881, The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis L. Coburn Memorial Collection
(fig. 2) Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le déjeuner des canotiers, 1880-81, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.