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Lot Essay
‘My father remembered the circumstances in which Renoir painted my mother’s portrait, when she was still a young girl. It was in Fontainebleau at the Majorat de Bellune where he was living with my grandparents. My father was struck by the fact that although the construction of the painting was only drawn in, Renoir completed the pink ribbon that decorated her hair, and then he returned and said: “Now I have my composition! All the colour shades will be chosen in relation to that pink, the problem of colour is settled!”’
(H. Dauberville, quoted in G-P & M. Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonée des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 1885-1881, vol. I, Paris, 2007, p. 13)
‘I am on the point of going on holiday to Bernheim’s in Fontainebleau, to paint portraits of the charming fiancées’ (Renoir, quoted in G-P & M. Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonée des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 1885-1881, vol. I, Paris, 2007, p. 30), Renoir wrote in a letter in the summer of 1901. The reason for this sojourn was a commission that the artist had received to paint the portraits of two sisters, Mathilde and Suzanne Adler, who were engaged to be married to the gallerists and close friends of the artist, Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune respectively. Painted in September of this year, Portrait de Madame Josse Bernheim-Dauberville (née Mathilde Adler) is one of this pair of exquisitely rendered and delicately coloured portraits; the other, Portrait de Madame Gaston Bernheim de Villers (née Suzanne Adler), now resides in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. With a unique and historic provenance, this rare and deeply personal portrait has remained in the family’s private collection since it was created over a century ago.
Exuding a radiant youthfulness and charming beauty, the young Mathilde Adler is casually seated within a softly coloured interior setting, her dark hair swept up and adorned with a pink bow. A photograph of Renoir painting this portrait shows that the future Madame Josse Bernheim-Dauberville was seated in a doorway, while the artist captured her from outside. As a result, in her portrait she appears bathed in natural light, her youthful complexion appearing all the more luminescent amidst the softly pastel toned background. Adorned in a pale pink dress decorated with a corsage of bows and ribbons, and clutching in her lap a straw hat, upon which rests her hand with a sparkling engagement ring visible, her pearlescent skin and the soft blush of her cheeks are all accentuated amidst this harmonious palette of soft pinks and creams. ‘My father remembered the circumstances in which Renoir painted my mother’s portrait’, Mathilde and Josse’s son, Henry Dauberville would later recall. ‘It was in Fontainebleau at the Majorat de Bellune where he was living with my grandparents. My father was struck by the fact that although the construction of the painting was only drawn in, Renoir completed the pink ribbon that decorated her hair, and then he returned and said: “Now I have my composition! All the colour shades will be chosen in relation to that pink, the problem of colour is settled!”’ (H. Dauberville, quoted in ibid., p. 13).
Renoir used the same compositional structure to depict Mathilde’s sister, Suzanne. Seated in a similar chair, she is instead pictured outside, wearing the same dress as her sister but in blue, which accentuates her blonde hair and fair complexion. In these portraits, both women appear as the epitome of femininity, beauty and youth; qualities that had become the quintessential characteristics of Renoir’s famed and celebrated style of portraiture. Appearing neither posed nor stiff, these young women instead appear relaxed and seemingly at ease in the presence of the artist. By the time he painted the present work, Renoir was widely renowned as the leading Impressionist portraitist of his time. Beginning in the late 1870s, he had been commissioned by a number of Paris’s leading families, many of them his patrons, including the publishing magnate, Georges Charpentier, Charles Ephrussi and his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel. As a result, by the turn of the century he had become known as the painter of the fashionable beau-monde, able to capture his sitters, particularly women, with an enchanting intimacy and distinct charm.
The lives of the Bernheim-Jeune brothers and Renoir were at this time intertwined. At the time that he painted the present work, the Bernheim-Jeunes were leading figures within the Parisian art world. Their father, the dealer Alexandre Bernheim had been one of the first to exhibit the work of the Impressionists and was a close friend of Renoir. His sons, Joseph (known as Josse) and Gaston had followed in their father’s footsteps and became leading supporters of the avant-garde in Paris; the first to show the work of Van Gogh in 1901 and the organisers of the landmark 1907 retrospective of Cézanne, they also exhibited, bought and sold the work of Renoir, Seurat, Matisse, Vuillard and Bonnard, among many others. In 1910, Renoir’s services were once more requested by the family. Now a young mother of a newborn son, Matilde appeared once more in a portrait, this time posing at Renoir’s home in the south of France, Les Collettes (Madame Josse Bernheim-Jeune et son fils Henry, Musée d’Orsay, Paris). These portraits serve as a testament to the long and close friendship that the artist shared with the various members of the Bernheim-Jeune family.
(H. Dauberville, quoted in G-P & M. Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonée des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 1885-1881, vol. I, Paris, 2007, p. 13)
‘I am on the point of going on holiday to Bernheim’s in Fontainebleau, to paint portraits of the charming fiancées’ (Renoir, quoted in G-P & M. Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonée des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 1885-1881, vol. I, Paris, 2007, p. 30), Renoir wrote in a letter in the summer of 1901. The reason for this sojourn was a commission that the artist had received to paint the portraits of two sisters, Mathilde and Suzanne Adler, who were engaged to be married to the gallerists and close friends of the artist, Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune respectively. Painted in September of this year, Portrait de Madame Josse Bernheim-Dauberville (née Mathilde Adler) is one of this pair of exquisitely rendered and delicately coloured portraits; the other, Portrait de Madame Gaston Bernheim de Villers (née Suzanne Adler), now resides in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. With a unique and historic provenance, this rare and deeply personal portrait has remained in the family’s private collection since it was created over a century ago.
Exuding a radiant youthfulness and charming beauty, the young Mathilde Adler is casually seated within a softly coloured interior setting, her dark hair swept up and adorned with a pink bow. A photograph of Renoir painting this portrait shows that the future Madame Josse Bernheim-Dauberville was seated in a doorway, while the artist captured her from outside. As a result, in her portrait she appears bathed in natural light, her youthful complexion appearing all the more luminescent amidst the softly pastel toned background. Adorned in a pale pink dress decorated with a corsage of bows and ribbons, and clutching in her lap a straw hat, upon which rests her hand with a sparkling engagement ring visible, her pearlescent skin and the soft blush of her cheeks are all accentuated amidst this harmonious palette of soft pinks and creams. ‘My father remembered the circumstances in which Renoir painted my mother’s portrait’, Mathilde and Josse’s son, Henry Dauberville would later recall. ‘It was in Fontainebleau at the Majorat de Bellune where he was living with my grandparents. My father was struck by the fact that although the construction of the painting was only drawn in, Renoir completed the pink ribbon that decorated her hair, and then he returned and said: “Now I have my composition! All the colour shades will be chosen in relation to that pink, the problem of colour is settled!”’ (H. Dauberville, quoted in ibid., p. 13).
Renoir used the same compositional structure to depict Mathilde’s sister, Suzanne. Seated in a similar chair, she is instead pictured outside, wearing the same dress as her sister but in blue, which accentuates her blonde hair and fair complexion. In these portraits, both women appear as the epitome of femininity, beauty and youth; qualities that had become the quintessential characteristics of Renoir’s famed and celebrated style of portraiture. Appearing neither posed nor stiff, these young women instead appear relaxed and seemingly at ease in the presence of the artist. By the time he painted the present work, Renoir was widely renowned as the leading Impressionist portraitist of his time. Beginning in the late 1870s, he had been commissioned by a number of Paris’s leading families, many of them his patrons, including the publishing magnate, Georges Charpentier, Charles Ephrussi and his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel. As a result, by the turn of the century he had become known as the painter of the fashionable beau-monde, able to capture his sitters, particularly women, with an enchanting intimacy and distinct charm.
The lives of the Bernheim-Jeune brothers and Renoir were at this time intertwined. At the time that he painted the present work, the Bernheim-Jeunes were leading figures within the Parisian art world. Their father, the dealer Alexandre Bernheim had been one of the first to exhibit the work of the Impressionists and was a close friend of Renoir. His sons, Joseph (known as Josse) and Gaston had followed in their father’s footsteps and became leading supporters of the avant-garde in Paris; the first to show the work of Van Gogh in 1901 and the organisers of the landmark 1907 retrospective of Cézanne, they also exhibited, bought and sold the work of Renoir, Seurat, Matisse, Vuillard and Bonnard, among many others. In 1910, Renoir’s services were once more requested by the family. Now a young mother of a newborn son, Matilde appeared once more in a portrait, this time posing at Renoir’s home in the south of France, Les Collettes (Madame Josse Bernheim-Jeune et son fils Henry, Musée d’Orsay, Paris). These portraits serve as a testament to the long and close friendship that the artist shared with the various members of the Bernheim-Jeune family.