Lot Essay
François Daulte has confirmed the authenticity of this watercolor.
In the summer or autumn of 1882, Renoir embarked upon his last ambitious exploration of the subject of urban and suburban recreation in a group of pictures depicting dancing couples. By the spring of the following year he had finished three life-size canvases: a matching pair of paintings entitled La danse à la ville and La danse à la campagne, both now hanging in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (Daulte, nos. 440 and 441) and an independent third version traditionally known as La danse à Bougival (Daulte, no.438; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
The present watercolor is closely related to the Musée d'Orsay painting of the same title. As illustrated in Vollard (op. cit.), Renoir executed two studies on a wide sheet that was subsequently divided; the present drawing is the left-hand study, the more elaborately detailed of the two. Renoir also executed several other studies for La danse à la campagne, at least one of which was likely drawn after the painting was completed (see Vollard, nos. 37 and 39; for a drawing related to La danse à Bougival, see Vollard, no. 40)
Although Renoir used the same male model, Paul Lhote, for both La danse à la ville and La danse à la campagne, he chose decidedly different female figures for each: the elegant Suzanne Valadon represented la ville and the robust Aline Charigot, whom Renoir met in 1879 and married in 1890, represented la campagne. Also known as Panneaux de la danse: L'hiver and L'été, the two works were clearly intended to suggest the difference for the bourgeois Parisian male between the urban rituals of the winter social season and the rural diversions of the summer. La danse à la campagne is notable for its feeling of cheerful, almost impulsive, informality, a mood which is heightened in the present watercolor by the spontaneity of its medium and by the intimacy of its scale.
In the summer or autumn of 1882, Renoir embarked upon his last ambitious exploration of the subject of urban and suburban recreation in a group of pictures depicting dancing couples. By the spring of the following year he had finished three life-size canvases: a matching pair of paintings entitled La danse à la ville and La danse à la campagne, both now hanging in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (Daulte, nos. 440 and 441) and an independent third version traditionally known as La danse à Bougival (Daulte, no.438; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
The present watercolor is closely related to the Musée d'Orsay painting of the same title. As illustrated in Vollard (op. cit.), Renoir executed two studies on a wide sheet that was subsequently divided; the present drawing is the left-hand study, the more elaborately detailed of the two. Renoir also executed several other studies for La danse à la campagne, at least one of which was likely drawn after the painting was completed (see Vollard, nos. 37 and 39; for a drawing related to La danse à Bougival, see Vollard, no. 40)
Although Renoir used the same male model, Paul Lhote, for both La danse à la ville and La danse à la campagne, he chose decidedly different female figures for each: the elegant Suzanne Valadon represented la ville and the robust Aline Charigot, whom Renoir met in 1879 and married in 1890, represented la campagne. Also known as Panneaux de la danse: L'hiver and L'été, the two works were clearly intended to suggest the difference for the bourgeois Parisian male between the urban rituals of the winter social season and the rural diversions of the summer. La danse à la campagne is notable for its feeling of cheerful, almost impulsive, informality, a mood which is heightened in the present watercolor by the spontaneity of its medium and by the intimacy of its scale.