Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Erwin & Lisbeth von Waldkirch-Bally, Aurau, Switzerland
Giraud-Pissarro-Segalot, Paris
Simon C. Dickinson Ltd, London
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2012

Aurau, Switzerland, Aargauer Kunsthaus (& travelling in Europe), Meisterwerke aus Schweizer Privatbesitz, 1996, no. 334 (possibly)

Ambroise Vollard, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Tableaux, pastels & dessins, Paris, 1918, illustrated pl. 53
Guy-Patrice & Michel Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 1911-1919 & Premier Supplément, Paris, 2014, vol. V, no. 3684, illustrated p. 57

The canvas is not lined. UV examination reveals two very fine lines of retouching to the lower left quadrant (approx. 2cm. long) and to the upper right quadrant (approx. 1cm. long). There are a few minor fine lines of stable craquelure to the thicker areas of impasto. The canvas is slightly undulating at the upper left corner and the varnish appears to be a bit dirty. This work is in overall very good condition.
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Painted in 1915, Anémones dans un vase is bursting with exuberance and vitality. By this time, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was well established as one of the foremost Impressionist painters, and his still-lifes in particular were a wildly popular subject. In 1868, Renoir had famously painted en plein air with Claude Monet at La Grenouillère. This friendship would continue, but over the years, Renoir’s practise of painting nature graduated from the unpredictability of the outdoors to a studio setting. Executed in a controlled environment, without the distractions of capricious light or weather, paintings such as the present work afforded Renoir the opportunity to fully concentrate on colour and technique. This is achieved in the depiction of Anémones dans un vase: the subject removed from its habitat yet rendered with all the freshness of flowers in the wild.

The thick impasto and warm palette, so skilfully deployed, describes the blooming flowers’ delicacy with a sense of spontaneity. Renoir once spoke of how he strove for an improvisatory effect in paintings of this kind: ‘It mustn’t reek of the model – and yet one should be able to get the feel of nature in it’ (quoted in François Fosca, Renoir: His life and work, London, 1961, p. 263). Glowing with jewel-like colours, Anémones dans un vase depicts one of Renoir’s favoured subject matters: he was drawn to flowers time and again during his celebrated artistic career. This lush and vibrant painting is a particularly charming example of Renoir’s mature paintings, which masterfully conveys the beauty of nature.