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拍品专文
This drawing will be reproduced in the Pierre-Auguste Renoir catalogue raisonné from François Daulte being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute.
Georges Charpentier, head of a Paris publishing house, and his wife Marguerite purchased three paintings by Renoir in the auction the Impressionists held in March 1875. The interest of the Charpentiers was soon to have a profound influence on his growing reputation. They commissioned portraits from Renoir, and the artist became a regular visitor to their salon, which was also frequented by the writers Daudet, Flaubert, Maupassant and Zola, the composers Chabrier, Massenet and Saint-Saens, as well as numerous personalities from the Parisian stage. The connections made there served the artist well into the 1880s.
It was at a soiré in the Charpentier's home that Renoir met Jeanne Samary in 1877. She was an actress at the Comédie Française, and "her beauty and radiant smile were famous on and off the stage" (T. Duret, Renoir, New York, 1937, p. 42). She would entertain the Charpentier's guests with scenes from her plays, and recitations of poems and stories by the writers who attended the salon. Jeanne became one of Renoir's favorite models. The painter disliked engaging the services of professional models, and, because his studio was only a short distance from her apartment, he frequently drew and painted her. Jeanne must have found Renoir attractive--he was at that time still unmarried--but she lamented that "Renoir is not the marrying kind. He marries all the women he paints, but with his brush" (quoted in N. Wadley, ed., Renoir: A Retrospective, New York, 1987, p. 34).
Renoir began to work in pastel as early as 1874, and his interest in the medium grew as his efforts in portraiture began to bring him some measure of financial success. Renoir greatly admired the pastels of Watteau and other 18th century artists, and pastel portraits were again becoming fashionable. However, Renoir only rarely employed pastel for formal portrait commissions, preferring instead to use the medium for more casual works in which the sitters were friends or family. "It was about 1890 that Renoir's first pastel portraits appeared. If he frequently used that medium to depict those near and dear to him it was because pastel, which combines color with line, gave him the possibilty of working rapidly in all their vividness the rapid flash of intelligence and the fleeting shadow of emotion" (F. Daulte, Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Watercolours, Pastels and Drawings in Colour, London, 1959, p. 10).
The present pastel displays the casual intimacy that characterized Renoir's friendship with Jeanne. Renoir painted at least five oil portraits of her in 1877-1878, including the full-length Portrait de Mademoiselle Samary (Daulte, no. 263; coll. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg), which Renoir exhibited in the Salon of 1879, together with Madame Georges Charpentier et ses enfants (Daulte, no. 266; coll. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). These pictures were Renoir's largest and most finished portraits to date, and he was banking on them to provide a degree of popular and critical success that had hitherto eluded him. Indeed, the critical acclaim proved to be nearly universal, including writers who had disparaged his earlier work. Durand-Ruel purchased the portrait of Jeanne Samary, and the praise that greeted the Charpentier family portrait lifted the artist's fortunes for the next several years, and led to numerous portrait commissions, which allowed Renoir to travel extensively in the early 1880s.
Georges Charpentier, head of a Paris publishing house, and his wife Marguerite purchased three paintings by Renoir in the auction the Impressionists held in March 1875. The interest of the Charpentiers was soon to have a profound influence on his growing reputation. They commissioned portraits from Renoir, and the artist became a regular visitor to their salon, which was also frequented by the writers Daudet, Flaubert, Maupassant and Zola, the composers Chabrier, Massenet and Saint-Saens, as well as numerous personalities from the Parisian stage. The connections made there served the artist well into the 1880s.
It was at a soiré in the Charpentier's home that Renoir met Jeanne Samary in 1877. She was an actress at the Comédie Française, and "her beauty and radiant smile were famous on and off the stage" (T. Duret, Renoir, New York, 1937, p. 42). She would entertain the Charpentier's guests with scenes from her plays, and recitations of poems and stories by the writers who attended the salon. Jeanne became one of Renoir's favorite models. The painter disliked engaging the services of professional models, and, because his studio was only a short distance from her apartment, he frequently drew and painted her. Jeanne must have found Renoir attractive--he was at that time still unmarried--but she lamented that "Renoir is not the marrying kind. He marries all the women he paints, but with his brush" (quoted in N. Wadley, ed., Renoir: A Retrospective, New York, 1987, p. 34).
Renoir began to work in pastel as early as 1874, and his interest in the medium grew as his efforts in portraiture began to bring him some measure of financial success. Renoir greatly admired the pastels of Watteau and other 18th century artists, and pastel portraits were again becoming fashionable. However, Renoir only rarely employed pastel for formal portrait commissions, preferring instead to use the medium for more casual works in which the sitters were friends or family. "It was about 1890 that Renoir's first pastel portraits appeared. If he frequently used that medium to depict those near and dear to him it was because pastel, which combines color with line, gave him the possibilty of working rapidly in all their vividness the rapid flash of intelligence and the fleeting shadow of emotion" (F. Daulte, Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Watercolours, Pastels and Drawings in Colour, London, 1959, p. 10).
The present pastel displays the casual intimacy that characterized Renoir's friendship with Jeanne. Renoir painted at least five oil portraits of her in 1877-1878, including the full-length Portrait de Mademoiselle Samary (Daulte, no. 263; coll. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg), which Renoir exhibited in the Salon of 1879, together with Madame Georges Charpentier et ses enfants (Daulte, no. 266; coll. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). These pictures were Renoir's largest and most finished portraits to date, and he was banking on them to provide a degree of popular and critical success that had hitherto eluded him. Indeed, the critical acclaim proved to be nearly universal, including writers who had disparaged his earlier work. Durand-Ruel purchased the portrait of Jeanne Samary, and the praise that greeted the Charpentier family portrait lifted the artist's fortunes for the next several years, and led to numerous portrait commissions, which allowed Renoir to travel extensively in the early 1880s.