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Lot Essay
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Renoir catalogue critique being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute and established from the archive funds of François Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and Wildenstein.
We are grateful to Guy-Patrice and Michel Dauberville for confirming that this picture is included in their Bernheim-Jeune archives as an authentic work.
Portraits of children were amongst Renoir's favourite themes and feature strongly in the artist's painting of the 1890s. Over the previous decade Renoir had been commissioned to paint the children of a number of celebrated patrons, including the Lerolles and the Berards. These commissions gave the artist a renewed interest in portraiture in the 1890s and Renoir painted a number of non-commissioned portraits in addtion to more formal requests. The sitter in Jeune fille au chapeau has not been identified but a similar portrait (D.644), dated by Daulte circa 1895, suggestsd the present work was executed shortly after Gabrielle Renard, a distant cousin of Aline Renoir, joined the family to help in the household; she stayed with the Renoirs for almost twenty years and became perhaps the artist's most frequent model.
As in so many of Renoir's canvases, the surface itself is seductive. The artist's characteristically luminous brushwork recieves studied attention, and the composition focuses on the figure without the distraction of a highly embellished background. Renoir has used a virtuoso economy of means to portray the girl's nose, red lips and rosy cheeks while using thicker more cursive brushstrokes to give form and volume to the hat. The surface retains its rich impasto.
We are grateful to Guy-Patrice and Michel Dauberville for confirming that this picture is included in their Bernheim-Jeune archives as an authentic work.
Portraits of children were amongst Renoir's favourite themes and feature strongly in the artist's painting of the 1890s. Over the previous decade Renoir had been commissioned to paint the children of a number of celebrated patrons, including the Lerolles and the Berards. These commissions gave the artist a renewed interest in portraiture in the 1890s and Renoir painted a number of non-commissioned portraits in addtion to more formal requests. The sitter in Jeune fille au chapeau has not been identified but a similar portrait (D.644), dated by Daulte circa 1895, suggestsd the present work was executed shortly after Gabrielle Renard, a distant cousin of Aline Renoir, joined the family to help in the household; she stayed with the Renoirs for almost twenty years and became perhaps the artist's most frequent model.
As in so many of Renoir's canvases, the surface itself is seductive. The artist's characteristically luminous brushwork recieves studied attention, and the composition focuses on the figure without the distraction of a highly embellished background. Renoir has used a virtuoso economy of means to portray the girl's nose, red lips and rosy cheeks while using thicker more cursive brushstrokes to give form and volume to the hat. The surface retains its rich impasto.