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Lot Essay
Upon her death in 1895, Berthe Morisot named Renoir as her daughter Julie's guardian. Julie was sixteen when Renoir took her under his wing. She travelled with him to Douardenez in the summer of 1895, accompanied by the artist's family, and Julie's two cousins, Paule and Jeanie Gobillard. Together they spent the months of August and September in Brittany, during which time Renoir gave the children painting lessons as he was working on several of his own canvases. Describing his stay, Renoir wrote, 'I'm working like a slave - Douardenez is superb' (K. Esielonis, A Passion for Renoir, 1996, p. 87).
In fact the house rented by Renoir was in the hamlet of Trboul rather than in Douardenez itself. Describing one of the paintings executed in Trboul whilst the whole family were there, Julie Manet recorded, 'Monsieur Renoir did a delightful study under the trees; one could see in it all the richness of the colours of the shadows beneath the trees on a very hot day and in the background the intensely blue sea glittering' (letter of 16 August 1895, R. de Boland Roberts and J. Roberts, Growing up with the Impressionists, The Diary of Julie Manet, London, 1987, p. 64).
Another version of the same subject, executed in the same year, is illustrated in Barbara Ehrlich White's, Renoir, his life, art, and letters, New York, 1984, p. 206.
In 1983 the late Franois Daulte confirmed the authenticity of this work, stating that it would be included in the fourth volume of his Renoir catalogue raisonn.
In fact the house rented by Renoir was in the hamlet of Trboul rather than in Douardenez itself. Describing one of the paintings executed in Trboul whilst the whole family were there, Julie Manet recorded, 'Monsieur Renoir did a delightful study under the trees; one could see in it all the richness of the colours of the shadows beneath the trees on a very hot day and in the background the intensely blue sea glittering' (letter of 16 August 1895, R. de Boland Roberts and J. Roberts, Growing up with the Impressionists, The Diary of Julie Manet, London, 1987, p. 64).
Another version of the same subject, executed in the same year, is illustrated in Barbara Ehrlich White's, Renoir, his life, art, and letters, New York, 1984, p. 206.
In 1983 the late Franois Daulte confirmed the authenticity of this work, stating that it would be included in the fourth volume of his Renoir catalogue raisonn.