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拍品专文
Jeune fille au banc belongs to the Renoir's remarkable series of garden pictures executed at the rue Cortot in Paris over the summers of 1875 and 1876. In early 1875, having spent the preceding summer in the company of Monet at Argenteuil, Renoir returned to the capital and took the lease of 12 rue Cortot for 100 francs a month. Situated on a steep, cobbled street in Montmartre, close to the Moulin de la Galette, the building provided spacious studio accommodation and had the added benefit of a large and rambling garden. Georges Rivire, who had assisted Renoir in his search for a studio, later recalled:
'As soon as Renoir entered the house, he was charmed by this view of the garden, which looked like beautiful abandoned park. Once we had passed through the narrow hallway, we stood before a vast uncultivated lawn dotted with poppies, convolvulus, and daisies' (G. Rivire, Renoir et ses amis, p. 130 - quoted in C.B. Bailey et al, loc. cit.).
The garden soon became a meeting point for the members of Renoir's circle and on many occasions they feature in the pictures painted there. The Carnegie Institute work (fig. 5) includes, as a counterpoint to the blaze of foreground colour, two distant figures idly in conversation - traditionally said to be Monet and Sisley, although neither was in Paris at the time - while La balanoire (Paris, Muse d'Orsay, D.202) features a portrait of Renoir's friend, the artist Norbert Goeneutte. Indeed, such were the natural advantages of the rue Cortot site that in later years it was to be occupied by a number of Montmartre habitus, including Raoul Dufy, Emile Bernard, Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo.
The model in Jeune fille au banc is Nini Lopez. Nini, with her open, fair features, was a frequent model for Renoir in the five years following 1875, appearing in the garden series (figs. 1, 2, & 4), as well as in some of the more erotically charged studio pictures such as La pense (Barber Institute, University of Birmingham, D.227).
'She was an ideal model: punctual, serious and discreet... She had a marvellous head of shining, golden blond hair, long eyelashes beneath well-arched brows and a profile of classical purity' (Georges Rivire, op. cit., quoted in N. Wadley (ed.), Renoir: A Retrospective, New York, 1987, p. 87).
All the rue Cortot garden pictures, aside from obvious compositional affinities - the vertical format, the high viewpoint, the balance between elements - share the common inspiration of the purest plein-airism. Saturated, vibrant pigments are laid onto a white-primed canvas, in some passages with turbulent impasto, in others with a soft, feathered rhythm, never losing sight of the principal goal of rendering the myriad effects of natural light shimmering across the subject. Such dedication to the motif and, in turn, such quiet sublimation of the author's presence, is a hallmark of Renoir's art of the 1870s. As Lawrence Gowing observed:
'The ways that Renoir's contemporaries painted were each comparatively consistent. Renoir decided how he would paint empirically, if not waywardly. The even granulation of colour in sunlight with which Monet and Pissarro explored landscape in the seventies was only one of the styles that opened to him. Liquid or crumbled dappling was equally possible. The tone was for preference bright and silvery, streaked or flecked with detail, it seemed on impulse' (Renoir, London, 1985, p.33).
In all the garden pictures illustrated here, Nini appears to wear the same fashionable blue dress with a tapering tunic and dark underskirt. Her pose in Jeune fille au banc, with its slight contrapposto and neatly clasped hands, relates most closely to the picture in the Annenberg Collection (fig. 1). She also wears the same hat which, in L'ombrelle (fig. 2) and Le printemps (fig. 4), is exchanged for a white, broader-rimmed confection.
Jeune fille au banc passed quickly into the collection of Ernest Hosched (fig. 6). A friend to many members of the Batignolle group and one of the earliest buyers of Impressionist paintings, Hosched acquired Monet's eponymous masterpiece, Impression, soleil levant (Paris, Muse Marmottan, W.263), from the ground-breaking 1874 exhibition. Hosched's rather eccentric business affairs, however, led to two forced sales of his collection in the 1870s. The second in 1878 included the present work amongst the three Renoirs offered. None achieved very remarkable prices - 31 francs was the hammer price for our work - while most of the other some forty-five impressionist works struggled, with many of the lots barely scraping to three figures. Following on from the lack of success of the 1875 sale organised by the artist themselves, the Hosched sale thus compounded the financial troubles for many, particularly the ever penurious Pissarro.
Jeune fille au banc was later acquired by Comte Armand Doria whose wide-ranging collection, rich in Corot and other Barbizon artists, fairly reflected the prevailing taste of the time. However, in a bold move, Doria began to augment his collection from the 1870s onwards with impressionist works. Like Hosched, he was among the 3,500 visitors to the First Impressionist exhibition where in all likelihood he purchased Czanne's Maison du pendu, Auvers (Paris, Muse d'Orsay, R.202) for 300 francs. In 1876 Doria went on to buy his first three Renoirs from Durand-Ruel and by the time of his death he owned a total of ten including, beside the present work, the Birmingham portrait of Nini, La pense, and another possible depiction of Nini, La premire sortie of 1876-7, now in the National Gallery, London (D.182). The posthumous sale of Doria's collection, staged by Georges Petit in Paris in 1899, numbered almost seven hundred items, of which around forty were impressionist paintings including Jeune fille au banc which was offered as lot 206. The prices fetched were all healthy and the sale itself did a great deal to establish the reputation of the first generation of Impressionist artists.
'As soon as Renoir entered the house, he was charmed by this view of the garden, which looked like beautiful abandoned park. Once we had passed through the narrow hallway, we stood before a vast uncultivated lawn dotted with poppies, convolvulus, and daisies' (G. Rivire, Renoir et ses amis, p. 130 - quoted in C.B. Bailey et al, loc. cit.).
The garden soon became a meeting point for the members of Renoir's circle and on many occasions they feature in the pictures painted there. The Carnegie Institute work (fig. 5) includes, as a counterpoint to the blaze of foreground colour, two distant figures idly in conversation - traditionally said to be Monet and Sisley, although neither was in Paris at the time - while La balanoire (Paris, Muse d'Orsay, D.202) features a portrait of Renoir's friend, the artist Norbert Goeneutte. Indeed, such were the natural advantages of the rue Cortot site that in later years it was to be occupied by a number of Montmartre habitus, including Raoul Dufy, Emile Bernard, Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo.
The model in Jeune fille au banc is Nini Lopez. Nini, with her open, fair features, was a frequent model for Renoir in the five years following 1875, appearing in the garden series (figs. 1, 2, & 4), as well as in some of the more erotically charged studio pictures such as La pense (Barber Institute, University of Birmingham, D.227).
'She was an ideal model: punctual, serious and discreet... She had a marvellous head of shining, golden blond hair, long eyelashes beneath well-arched brows and a profile of classical purity' (Georges Rivire, op. cit., quoted in N. Wadley (ed.), Renoir: A Retrospective, New York, 1987, p. 87).
All the rue Cortot garden pictures, aside from obvious compositional affinities - the vertical format, the high viewpoint, the balance between elements - share the common inspiration of the purest plein-airism. Saturated, vibrant pigments are laid onto a white-primed canvas, in some passages with turbulent impasto, in others with a soft, feathered rhythm, never losing sight of the principal goal of rendering the myriad effects of natural light shimmering across the subject. Such dedication to the motif and, in turn, such quiet sublimation of the author's presence, is a hallmark of Renoir's art of the 1870s. As Lawrence Gowing observed:
'The ways that Renoir's contemporaries painted were each comparatively consistent. Renoir decided how he would paint empirically, if not waywardly. The even granulation of colour in sunlight with which Monet and Pissarro explored landscape in the seventies was only one of the styles that opened to him. Liquid or crumbled dappling was equally possible. The tone was for preference bright and silvery, streaked or flecked with detail, it seemed on impulse' (Renoir, London, 1985, p.33).
In all the garden pictures illustrated here, Nini appears to wear the same fashionable blue dress with a tapering tunic and dark underskirt. Her pose in Jeune fille au banc, with its slight contrapposto and neatly clasped hands, relates most closely to the picture in the Annenberg Collection (fig. 1). She also wears the same hat which, in L'ombrelle (fig. 2) and Le printemps (fig. 4), is exchanged for a white, broader-rimmed confection.
Jeune fille au banc passed quickly into the collection of Ernest Hosched (fig. 6). A friend to many members of the Batignolle group and one of the earliest buyers of Impressionist paintings, Hosched acquired Monet's eponymous masterpiece, Impression, soleil levant (Paris, Muse Marmottan, W.263), from the ground-breaking 1874 exhibition. Hosched's rather eccentric business affairs, however, led to two forced sales of his collection in the 1870s. The second in 1878 included the present work amongst the three Renoirs offered. None achieved very remarkable prices - 31 francs was the hammer price for our work - while most of the other some forty-five impressionist works struggled, with many of the lots barely scraping to three figures. Following on from the lack of success of the 1875 sale organised by the artist themselves, the Hosched sale thus compounded the financial troubles for many, particularly the ever penurious Pissarro.
Jeune fille au banc was later acquired by Comte Armand Doria whose wide-ranging collection, rich in Corot and other Barbizon artists, fairly reflected the prevailing taste of the time. However, in a bold move, Doria began to augment his collection from the 1870s onwards with impressionist works. Like Hosched, he was among the 3,500 visitors to the First Impressionist exhibition where in all likelihood he purchased Czanne's Maison du pendu, Auvers (Paris, Muse d'Orsay, R.202) for 300 francs. In 1876 Doria went on to buy his first three Renoirs from Durand-Ruel and by the time of his death he owned a total of ten including, beside the present work, the Birmingham portrait of Nini, La pense, and another possible depiction of Nini, La premire sortie of 1876-7, now in the National Gallery, London (D.182). The posthumous sale of Doria's collection, staged by Georges Petit in Paris in 1899, numbered almost seven hundred items, of which around forty were impressionist paintings including Jeune fille au banc which was offered as lot 206. The prices fetched were all healthy and the sale itself did a great deal to establish the reputation of the first generation of Impressionist artists.