Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Galerie Schmit, Paris
Private Collection, France
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2000

Paris, Galerie Schmit, Aspects de la peinture française, 1978, no. 54

Ambroise Vollard, Tableaux, pastels et dessins de Pierre-Auguste Renoir, vol. I, Paris, 1918, no. 196, illustrated p. 49
Guy-Patrice & Michel Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 1903-1910, vol. IV, Paris, 2012, no. 3456, illustrated p. 454

Canvas is lined. Surface is clean. Archival photographs indicate that the upper right and lower left corners were extended by another hand. Under UV light: these areas do not fluoresce though parts of another original composition at upper right are visible. No other retouching is apparent. Very good condition.
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This intimate portrait of Renoir’s second son Jean is a insightful example of one of the artist’s most enduring themes: his children. Having executed a number of commissions of children during the early part of his career, the birth of his three sons at the turn of the century heralded a more detailed and considered approach to figure painting. Striving to capture the tender spirit of his young son, Renoir employed his bold impressionist palate to great effect. The rich seductive surface is belied by Jean’s shy expression; looking away from his father’s gaze, his auburn hair cropped short and the red bow that used to sit proudly atop his head as an infant transition into a symbol of his impending adolescence: a cravat. Through this portrait Renoir captures the transition of Jean from the androgynous doll of his extreme youth to the young man that he would soon become. Renoir’s characteristically luminous brushwork receives studied attention, with the composition focusing entirely on the figure without the distraction of an embellished interior. George Rivière has asserted that "In Renoir’s figure painting, portraiture deserves a place unto itself. For no other artist has looked so deeply into his sitter's soul, nor captured its essence with such economy" (quoted in Colin Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age, New Haven, 1997, p. 1).

Jean Renoir would go on to have a successful artistic career in his own right—as a filmmaker, directing such classics as The Grand Illusion (see fig. 1) and The Rules of the Game. During the long sittings for his father, it is likely that Jean learned and developed his studied artistic eye which would lead Orson Welles to describe him as the "greatest of all directors."



This work is accompanied by an Attestation of Inclusion from the Wildenstein Institute, and it will be included in the forthcoming Renoir Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.