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Lot Essay
“[Renoir] is the true painter of young women, he renders, in this sparkling sunshine, the sheen of their tender skin, the velvet of their flesh, the lustre of their eyes, the elegance of their toilettes…” - Joris-Karl Huysmans
Painted in 1882, Tête de jeune fille dates from a key period of transition within Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s career. It was at the beginning of that year that the pioneering Impressionist dealer Paul Durand-Ruel had begun to purchase Renoir’s work, granting the artist a new level of professional and financial security, which in turn enabled him to travel abroad for the first time. In the spring of 1881 he ventured to North Africa, following in the footsteps of Eugène Delacroix as he sought to add a new sense of exoticism and richness of color to his paintings. That autumn, meanwhile, was spent touring the great cities of Italy, with the artist visiting Venice, Florence and Rome, before continuing south to Naples.
For Renoir, female portraits offered a pathway to exploring the intricate relationships of color, paint and brushwork in the creation of form. Studying the faces and bodies of his models in a variety of positions, scenarios and guises, the artist developed a keen appreciation of the ways in which varying effects of light and movement could dramatically alter the color patterns of his subject’s skin. Over the course of his studies during the 1880s, Renoir began to grow increasingly interested in the tactility of his sitter’s flesh, drawing inspiration from the art of Titian, Peter Paul Rubens and Diego Velázquez, as he sought a way of expressing a sense of touch through visual means alone. In the present work, Renoir achieves this impression with a high degree of skill, capturing the warmth and texture of his model’s skin through a subtle layering of opalescent color. Depicting his model using a constellation of soft, feathery brushstrokes, Renoir captures the nuances of color in her skin and hair in a delicate interplay of pale mauves, creams and pink tones that creates a shimmering, lustrous surface that seems to evoke the fluttering passage of light as it crosses her soft, supple skin.
Captured in profile, the young woman turns her face slightly away from the viewer. This, combined with the close framing of the young woman’s face, lends the scene an unusual intimacy, emphasizing not only the close proximity of Renoir to his model, but also the relationship that existed between the two in the moment of the painting’s creation. One can almost feel the connection between the artist and his sitter, as he studies the gentle curves of her form, the play of light on her skin, and the luminous shine of her hair as it is pulled back into an elegant bun.
An enchanting celebration of youthful beauty, this charming portrait also highlights Renoir’s desire to convey the physical presence of his sitter. He often expressed his wish to make his viewers feel as if they could reach out and “stroke a breast or a back” (Renoir, quoted in M. Lucy and J. House, ed., Renoir in the Barnes Foundation, New Haven, 2012, p. 16). Here, the model’s flesh and hair are densely worked with a plethora of soft, short brushstrokes that lend her body a palpable weight and solidity, carefully delineated in an intricate play of shadow and light to lend them a new monumentality. The sitter’s facial features are similarly finely detailed, her profile rendered in a flowing, sinuous line, while the rosy flush of her cheeks and radiant complexion capture her youthful vitality. Eschewing any signs of contemporary Parisian life in both his sitter’s appearance and the unidentified setting, Renoir aligns himself with the Renaissance masters he so admired on his journey to Italy, creating a timeless scene that focuses on the pure beauty of the young woman before him.
Painted in 1882, Tête de jeune fille dates from a key period of transition within Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s career. It was at the beginning of that year that the pioneering Impressionist dealer Paul Durand-Ruel had begun to purchase Renoir’s work, granting the artist a new level of professional and financial security, which in turn enabled him to travel abroad for the first time. In the spring of 1881 he ventured to North Africa, following in the footsteps of Eugène Delacroix as he sought to add a new sense of exoticism and richness of color to his paintings. That autumn, meanwhile, was spent touring the great cities of Italy, with the artist visiting Venice, Florence and Rome, before continuing south to Naples.
For Renoir, female portraits offered a pathway to exploring the intricate relationships of color, paint and brushwork in the creation of form. Studying the faces and bodies of his models in a variety of positions, scenarios and guises, the artist developed a keen appreciation of the ways in which varying effects of light and movement could dramatically alter the color patterns of his subject’s skin. Over the course of his studies during the 1880s, Renoir began to grow increasingly interested in the tactility of his sitter’s flesh, drawing inspiration from the art of Titian, Peter Paul Rubens and Diego Velázquez, as he sought a way of expressing a sense of touch through visual means alone. In the present work, Renoir achieves this impression with a high degree of skill, capturing the warmth and texture of his model’s skin through a subtle layering of opalescent color. Depicting his model using a constellation of soft, feathery brushstrokes, Renoir captures the nuances of color in her skin and hair in a delicate interplay of pale mauves, creams and pink tones that creates a shimmering, lustrous surface that seems to evoke the fluttering passage of light as it crosses her soft, supple skin.
Captured in profile, the young woman turns her face slightly away from the viewer. This, combined with the close framing of the young woman’s face, lends the scene an unusual intimacy, emphasizing not only the close proximity of Renoir to his model, but also the relationship that existed between the two in the moment of the painting’s creation. One can almost feel the connection between the artist and his sitter, as he studies the gentle curves of her form, the play of light on her skin, and the luminous shine of her hair as it is pulled back into an elegant bun.
An enchanting celebration of youthful beauty, this charming portrait also highlights Renoir’s desire to convey the physical presence of his sitter. He often expressed his wish to make his viewers feel as if they could reach out and “stroke a breast or a back” (Renoir, quoted in M. Lucy and J. House, ed., Renoir in the Barnes Foundation, New Haven, 2012, p. 16). Here, the model’s flesh and hair are densely worked with a plethora of soft, short brushstrokes that lend her body a palpable weight and solidity, carefully delineated in an intricate play of shadow and light to lend them a new monumentality. The sitter’s facial features are similarly finely detailed, her profile rendered in a flowing, sinuous line, while the rosy flush of her cheeks and radiant complexion capture her youthful vitality. Eschewing any signs of contemporary Parisian life in both his sitter’s appearance and the unidentified setting, Renoir aligns himself with the Renaissance masters he so admired on his journey to Italy, creating a timeless scene that focuses on the pure beauty of the young woman before him.