Danseuse au tambourin II

In 1918, after the departure of Richard Guino, with whom he had collaborated on roughly 20 sculptures, Renoir engaged the services of the young sculptor Louis Morel. Together they created three terracotta reliefs on Dionysian themes, including the present subject and Le joueur de flûte (see the following lot). "It is a moving fact that the very last sculptures of this old man, who was paralyzed and not far from his end, evoked music and dance" (Haesaerts, op. cit., p. 33). As Guino had done before him, Morel modelled the reliefs from drawings by Renoir, whose hands were arthritic and incapable of working in even the most malleable materials. Renoir had planned a further relief depicting a dancing figure wearing a wreath, but became too ill to continue working on it.