Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Thence by descent

Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, L’Impressionnisme, 1935, no. 73

Portrait de Madame Charpentier is one of Renoir’s grandest and beautifully executed portraits of a leading figure in Parisian high society. Painted in 1878, at the time of his growing reputation, this work belongs to an important group of commissioned portraits that helped establish him as one of the foremost figures of Parisian artistic circles. Throughout the 1870s, Renoir painted a number of works portraying his ever expanding group of patrons and their families, as well as the popular actress Jeanne Samary. With his success at the Salon of 1879, where he exhibited, among others, the large oil of Mme Charpentier and her children (see fig. 1) and pastel portraits of Paul Charpentier, Renoir’s economic situation was transformed virtually overnight, and by the late 1870s portraiture enabled him to achieve financial security as well as artistic recognition.

The figure depicted in the present work is Madame Charpentier (1848-1904; see fig. 2), née Marguerite Luise Lemonnier, the eldest daughter of Alexandre Gabriel Lemonnier - who was the Crown jeweller to Napoleon III and joaillier-bijoutier of Queen Isabella of Spain - and his second wife Sophie Reygondo Duchatenet. Although Marguerite’s bourgeois family, who had an apartment and jewellery shop at Place Vendôme, were opposed to her marrying Georges Charpentier "without the assurance of a solid fortune", the couple got married in 1871. They moved to 11 rue de Grenelle, where the Salon held by Mme Charpentier soon became famous among the artistic and literary elite. Renoir frequented the Salon from 1876 onwards, and was introduced to a number of wealthy businessmen and art patrons. His elegant painterly style and insightful perception of character made him an ideal portraitist for patrons whose taste did not conform with the academic standards of the time.

Georges Charpentier, who was a publisher well known in Parisian literary circles, first acquired three paintings by Renoir at auction in May 1875, and in the following years assembled a collection of Impressionist works. From April 1879 he was able to promote Renoir alongside artists such as Monet and Sisley, in a series of articles and reviews that appeared in La Vie Moderne, published by his company. In 1876 he commissioned Renoir to paint two decorative panels for the main staircase of his home. It was his wife Marguerite, however, who became particularly friendly with the artist, and helped him during the early years of his career by commissioning portraits of herself and her children as well as menu designs. She was also instrumental in promoting his works at the Salon.

Writing about Renoir’s art from this period, Keith Wheldon commented: "Renoir’s career as a portraitist had been developing well, bringing him more commissions and giving him an introduction to some influential patrons. The degree of importance Renoir attached to portraiture is demonstrated by the fact that in the second Impressionist Exhibition of April 1876 he did not include any landscapes amongst the fifteen works he exhibited, and of them ten were commissioned portraits. By May of 1876 Renoir had been accepted into the Charpentier salon. The Pêcheur à la Ligne had impressed Mme Charpentier who now considered making Renoir her ‘discovery,' thereby improving her reputation as a hostess and patroness of the arts. He was given what amounted to a trial commission, Mlle Georgette Charpentier Seated, a portrait of Mme Charpentier’s daughter, in May 1876. This came up to standard, and he was ‘accepted'" (Keith Wheldon, Renoir and his Art, London, 1975, p. 74).

Colin B. Bailey has written extensively on the history of Renoir's commission to paint Mme Charpentier's portrait, and how the artist felt indebted to his patrons for this career-defining opportunity: "Between 1876 and 1882 Renoir painted seven portraits and two full-length figures for the Charpentiers, as well as providing mirror frames in MacLaren cement and advising them on the varnishing and framing of their pictures. 'Painter in ordinary' to Marguerite Charpentier, he attended her celebrated salon in the rue de Grenelle and was ‘pushed’ by her and her husband – the word is Pissarro’s – to exhibit again at the official Salon in 1878. The following year Marguerite Charpentier used her considerable influence to ensure that Renoir’s portrait of her and her children would enjoy a place of honour ("les honneurs de la cimaise") at the Salon of 1879. 'If one day I succeed,' Renoir informed her husband, 'it will be entirely thanks to her, because I would most certainly have been incapable of doing so on my own' " (Colin B. Bailey et al., Renoir’s Portraits. Impressions of an Age, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 161). Following the First Portrait of Madame Georges Charpentier painted in 1876-77 (see figs. 3 and 4), Georges Charpentier commissioned Renoir to paint another portrait of his wife, the present work, this time without the ‘frivolous’ attributes of her earrings and elaborate dress. 

Maurice Dreyfous, Charpentier’s partner between 1872 and 1877, claimed to have introduced Renoir to Marguerite Charpentier. He wrote in his memoirs that she "had the advantage of being pretty, of seeming very clever and very kind, and of being cleverer than she seemed and every bit as good […] she was energetic, ambitious, and determined" (Maurice Dreyfous, Ce qu’il me reste à dire, Paris, 1913, pp. 176-77; quoted in ibid., p. 161). In the present work, Renoir captured her resolute and sturdy character through her self-assured pose and a firm expression. The treatment of her face, standing out against the deep blue background and the free, spontaneous brushstrokes, is reminiscent of French 18th century portraits by artists such as Boucher and Fragonard. Having remained in the family of the sitter to this day and not seen in public since its last exhibition in 1935, Portrait de Madame Charpentier is not only an outstanding example of Renoir’s classic Impressionist portraiture, but also an important document of its time.

Comparables:

Fig. 1, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Madame Georges Charpentier et ses enfants, 1878, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Fig. 2, Madame Marguerite Charpentier, circa 1880

Fig. 3, Madame Marguerite Charpentier in her drawing room circa 1890.  Premier portrait de Madame Georges Charpentier, now at the Musée d'Orsay, hangs above the mantle. Photograph Service de Documentation, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Fig. 4, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Premier portrait de Madame Georges Charpentier, 1876-77, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris