Lot Essay
This painting will be reproduced in the Renoir catalogue raisonn from Franois Daulte being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute.
In the mid-1880s, Renoir developed a renewed interest in the painting of the nude, which he had virtually abandoned during the previous decade. As Berthe Morisot recorded in her diary in January 1886, "[Renoir] tells me that the nude seems to be one of the indispensible forms of art" (quoted in B.E. White, Renoir, His Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 174).
It was at this time as well that Renoir attempted to reconcile his desire to paint directly from nature while maintaining his aspirations to join his role models Rubens, Raphael, Fragonard and Boucher within the long-standing history of studio painting. John House writes:
On his travels Renoir painted many landscapes and informal outdoor subjects, but his more serious efforts were reserved for themes which tread the borderline between everday life and idyll themes with obvious echoes of eighteenth century art. He painted a long series of nudes, mainly young girls in outdoor settings, whom in a letter he called his "nymphs." Mainly single figures at first, he brought them together in groups around 1897 in several pictures of girls playing which translate the subject of the 1887 Bathers into a fluent informality very reminiscent of Fragonard's Bathers (J. House, Renoir, exh. cat. The Hayward Gallery, London, 1985, pp. 250-251).
In the mid-1880s, Renoir developed a renewed interest in the painting of the nude, which he had virtually abandoned during the previous decade. As Berthe Morisot recorded in her diary in January 1886, "[Renoir] tells me that the nude seems to be one of the indispensible forms of art" (quoted in B.E. White, Renoir, His Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 174).
It was at this time as well that Renoir attempted to reconcile his desire to paint directly from nature while maintaining his aspirations to join his role models Rubens, Raphael, Fragonard and Boucher within the long-standing history of studio painting. John House writes:
On his travels Renoir painted many landscapes and informal outdoor subjects, but his more serious efforts were reserved for themes which tread the borderline between everday life and idyll themes with obvious echoes of eighteenth century art. He painted a long series of nudes, mainly young girls in outdoor settings, whom in a letter he called his "nymphs." Mainly single figures at first, he brought them together in groups around 1897 in several pictures of girls playing which translate the subject of the 1887 Bathers into a fluent informality very reminiscent of Fragonard's Bathers (J. House, Renoir, exh. cat. The Hayward Gallery, London, 1985, pp. 250-251).