PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)
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This lot has been imported from outside of the UK … Read more PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE FRENCH COLLECTION
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)

Petite fille avec sa poupée

Details
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)
Petite fille avec sa poupée
signed 'Renoir' (upper left)
oil on canvas
16 1⁄8 x 13 in. (41 x 33.2 cm.)
Painted circa 1897-1900
Provenance
Ambroise Vollard, Paris, by whom acquired from the artist, by 1919.
Alex Reid & Lefevre, Ltd., London.
Galerie Bignou, Paris & New York, by 1933.
Private collection, New York.
Raphaël Gérard, Paris.
Private collection, Paris, by whom acquired from the above on 9 December 1937, and thence by descent to the present owner.
Literature
A. Vollard, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Tableaux, pastels et dessins, vol. I, Paris, 1918, no. 471, p. 118 (illustrated).
New York Evening Post, 28 October 1933 (illustrated).
G.-P. & M. Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vol. III, 1895,-1902, Paris, 2010, no. 2350, p. 34 (illustrated).
Exhibited
New York, Knoedler, Paintings from the Ambroise Vollard Collection, November - December 1933, no. 36 (titled 'La fillette à la poupée'); this exhibition later travelled to New Orleans, Arts and Crafts Club, December 1933.
Special notice
This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
Further details
This work will be included in the forthcoming Pierre-Auguste Renoir Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
Sale room notice
Please note the updated cataloguing for this work on Christies.com

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Micol Flocchini
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Lot Essay

Towards the end of the 19th Century Renoir began to limit his portraiture mostly to models taken from his own household, whom he often painted on a smaller scale than he had previously used for his society portraits. Throughout the last decades of his life, he became increasingly interested in achieving a sense of casual, spontaneous naturalism that can be seen in informal portrait studies like Petite fille avec sa poupée. Edmond, the artist's son, recalls his father's approach to painting these subjects: "When he paints a portrait he asks his model to behave normally, to sit as she usually sits, to dress as she usually dresses, so that nothing smacks of constraint or artificial preparation" (quoted in C.B. Baily, Renoir's Portraits, New Haven, 1997, p. 20).

At the very heart of Renoir's figure painting was the emphasis on natural light which he gave precedence over context. By posing the sitter, against a neutral and mostly abstracted background, he was able to eliminate connotations of narrative. This modern treatment of the portrait subject allowed him to concentrate on the handling of the brushwork and to emphasize the luminous quality of the paint. The palette of Petite fille avec sa poupée is typical of his paintings of this period. Its jewel tones of pink, ochre and green are punctuated with touches of luminous white. Renoir enjoyed working with young models and portraits of his patrons' children had comprised a large portion of his portrait production in the previous decades. The tender manner in which the young female portrait is posed, cuddling her doll, underscores the sense of intimacy to the scene. Furthermore, the provenance of this work speaks to its thoughtful execution – having been lovingly cherished in the same private French collection for almost a century.

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