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Lot Essay
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Renoir catalogue raisonné from François Daulte being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute.
In 1882 Renoir traveled to Italy and Algeria inspired by the older generation of artists whom he admired the most, Delacroix and Ingres. While Italy afforded him the opportunity to study firsthand classical works of art, he was especially drawn to North Africa by a desire to find new and different subjects for his work. Encouraged by Durand-Ruel's recent purchase of a number of his paintings, Renoir hoped to further his commercial favor with critics and collectors.
The brilliant light and exotic terrain of Algeria mesmerized Renoir, and in March of 1882 he returned for two additional months to paint and sketch. He wrote, "I have never seen anything more sumptuous and more fertile...a marvelous green with the mixture of prickly pear and aloes in the hedges, the fields full of flowers as at Vargemont [sic], all of it bordered by the gentle Chiffa Mountains, and on the other side the sea, eternally cheerful and almost always blue, a sea into which one feels like diving" (quoted in B.E. White, Renoir, His Life, Art and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 105).
Seduced by the natural beauty he discovered, this trip laid the ground work for Renoir's later paintings and "helped [him] sense the possibility in painting of reconciling the study of outdoor light and color on to a clear formal structure" (Renoir, London, 1985, exh. cat., p. 220). Using a brilliant palette and applying the paint with vigorous brushstrokes, Renoir captures the effects of the Algerian light at mid-day. Moreover, it was in Algeria that Renoir mastered the use of white for pictorial effect. He wrote, "In Algeria I discovered white. Everything is white, the burnouses, the walls, the minaret, the road" (quoted in ibid., p. 226).
In 1882 Renoir traveled to Italy and Algeria inspired by the older generation of artists whom he admired the most, Delacroix and Ingres. While Italy afforded him the opportunity to study firsthand classical works of art, he was especially drawn to North Africa by a desire to find new and different subjects for his work. Encouraged by Durand-Ruel's recent purchase of a number of his paintings, Renoir hoped to further his commercial favor with critics and collectors.
The brilliant light and exotic terrain of Algeria mesmerized Renoir, and in March of 1882 he returned for two additional months to paint and sketch. He wrote, "I have never seen anything more sumptuous and more fertile...a marvelous green with the mixture of prickly pear and aloes in the hedges, the fields full of flowers as at Vargemont [sic], all of it bordered by the gentle Chiffa Mountains, and on the other side the sea, eternally cheerful and almost always blue, a sea into which one feels like diving" (quoted in B.E. White, Renoir, His Life, Art and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 105).
Seduced by the natural beauty he discovered, this trip laid the ground work for Renoir's later paintings and "helped [him] sense the possibility in painting of reconciling the study of outdoor light and color on to a clear formal structure" (Renoir, London, 1985, exh. cat., p. 220). Using a brilliant palette and applying the paint with vigorous brushstrokes, Renoir captures the effects of the Algerian light at mid-day. Moreover, it was in Algeria that Renoir mastered the use of white for pictorial effect. He wrote, "In Algeria I discovered white. Everything is white, the burnouses, the walls, the minaret, the road" (quoted in ibid., p. 226).