Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Margarete Oppenheim, Berlin (acquired by 1928)
Auction, Paul Cassirer, Berlin, October 30, 1928 (consigned by the above, unsold, and returned to her)
Galerie [Gottfried] Tanner, Zurich
Arthur Gumbert, Hannover & Amsterdam (acquired circa 1937)
Matthiesen Galleries, London
Mrs. Ralph Harmon Booth, Detroit
The French Art Galleries, New York (acquired from the above by exchange February 3, 1941)
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York (acquired from the above October 23, 1944)
Mrs. John Barry Ryan (acquired from the above on November 11, 1944)
Sale: Sotheby’s, New York, Impressionist Paintings and Drawings from the Estate of Mrs. John Barry Ryan, May 9, 1995, lot 54
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner 

Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum & Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art, Monet and Renoir: Two Great Impressionist Trends, 2003-04, no. 56, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Bernheim-Jeune,ed., L'Atelier de Renoir, Paris, 1931, no. 26, illustrated pl. 13
Guy-Patrice & Michel Dauberville, Renoir. Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vol. II, Paris, 2009, no. 882, illustrated p. 118

The canvas is not lined. The edges are reinforced with tape. UV examination reveals no signs of retouching. The surface is slightly dirty in a few places. This work is in overall very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This painting is being offered for sale pursuant to a settlement agreement between the current owner and the heirs of Arthur Gumbert and Margarete Oppenheim.

In the early 1880s Renoir made his first forays abroad; he had previously travelled no further from Paris than Normandy. The years 1881-84 however saw Renoir in a variety of disparate countries including Algeria, Italy and the French Riviera. It was on these journeys that he stepped away from rendering purely figure-based compositions, rather creating an interesting series of landscapes to record his new surroundings. There is no doubt that these travels deeply affected Renoir and his art, and indeed he would return repeatedly to the South of France, eventually choosing to settle permanently in Cagnes-sur-Mer in the early 1900s.

Vieux port à Marseille exemplifies Renoir’s canvases from these early sojourns to the Mediterranean coast. Here he depicts the Old Port of Marseille, which was originally settled in 600 BC by the Greeks. By the mid-1800s over 12,000 ships passed through the port per year, making it a principal trade route well into the twentieth century. The swift strokes in this canvas lend a sense of movement to the ships and passersby, while the predominantly lighter tones emphasize the brightness and heat of the Mediterranean sun. "It was in landscape painting…that Renoir achieved some of his most startling Impressionist effects and his most arresting coloristic discoveries. So completely is form dissolved in some of his paintings that Renoir comes closer to pictorial abstraction than any other artist of his time. Landscape was also an area in which he felt a particular freedom to improvise with touch and application of paint, moving from a surface of thick impasto on one canvas to a watercolor-like application of thinned-down oil pain on another" (Renoir Landscapes 1865-1883 (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery, London; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa & Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2007-08, p. 7).