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Lot Essay
Please note that the present work is being offered for sale pursuant to a settlement agreement between the current owner and the heirs of Dr Julius and Mrs Julie Elias. This settlement agreement resolves the dispute over ownership of the work and title will pass to the successful bidder.
Buste de femme nue is dated to circa 1879, an important period when Pierre-Auguste Renoir began to significantly re-evaluate both his approach to form and to subject matter. Thus, whilst the very bold, freely rendered background of vibrant colour patches and rapid strokes of paint in Buste de femme nue point to the loose, spontaneous brushwork which appears in a number of canvases dating from the 1870s, the subject matter itself importantly prefigures his later focus upon the nude.
Prior to the 1880s, the nude was a subject which Renoir treated only infrequently. His earliest nudes had drawn from both classical mythology and the then-ubiquitous subject of the 'classical' bather, and had shown the distinct influence of Gustave Courbet's fleshy naked bodies of the 1850s. He subsequently dedicated himself primarily to the depiction of modern life and portraiture, becoming a prominent member of the group of artists who became known as the Impressionists. It was not until he returned from his tour of Italy of 1881-82 that the nude became the principal subject of his art. It was between these phases of his career that Renoir, in the mid-to-late 1870s, re-engaged - in a select number of canvases such as Buste de femme nue - with the representation of the nude.
In many respects, Buste de femme nue can be seen as one of Renoir's last Impressionist nudes, before he turned towards Ingres and Italy. The dating of the present work invites particular comparison with É tude de nu of circa 1880 in the collection of the Musée Rodin. Whilst both paintings display a similarly freely brushed background, the more sculptural form of Étude de nu and the greater linearity of the figure - particularly the face and upper body - indicate that by the early 1880s, Renoir's work was already undergoing a stylistic shift. This shift is generally ascribed to his study of the work of Ingres and his subsequent trip to Italy where he studied Raphael's frescoes in Rome and Pompeian wall paintings in Naples. The influences he assimilated are evident in his later paintings of the nude such as Baigneuse assise of circa 1883-84 (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard), where there is a noticeable distinction between the treatment of the crisply delineated, classicised figure and the more sketchily handled background. By contrast, in Buste de femme nue, the woman's flesh has been painted in such a way that there is a synthesis between the tones of her skin and flowing hair and the multi-coloured haze of the background.
Renoir had explored this fusion between figure and background earlier in Étude (known as Torse de femme au soleil), exhibited at the second Impressionist group exhibition of 1876. Whereas Étude suggested the transitory and ephemeral through effects of dappled light, the model in Buste de femme nue is invested with a greater sense of presence and timelessness. This is emphasised by the non-specific background, the lack of any narrative context and the model's simple seated pose, itself foreshadowing those of his later monumental nudes.
Buste de femme nue is dated to circa 1879, an important period when Pierre-Auguste Renoir began to significantly re-evaluate both his approach to form and to subject matter. Thus, whilst the very bold, freely rendered background of vibrant colour patches and rapid strokes of paint in Buste de femme nue point to the loose, spontaneous brushwork which appears in a number of canvases dating from the 1870s, the subject matter itself importantly prefigures his later focus upon the nude.
Prior to the 1880s, the nude was a subject which Renoir treated only infrequently. His earliest nudes had drawn from both classical mythology and the then-ubiquitous subject of the 'classical' bather, and had shown the distinct influence of Gustave Courbet's fleshy naked bodies of the 1850s. He subsequently dedicated himself primarily to the depiction of modern life and portraiture, becoming a prominent member of the group of artists who became known as the Impressionists. It was not until he returned from his tour of Italy of 1881-82 that the nude became the principal subject of his art. It was between these phases of his career that Renoir, in the mid-to-late 1870s, re-engaged - in a select number of canvases such as Buste de femme nue - with the representation of the nude.
In many respects, Buste de femme nue can be seen as one of Renoir's last Impressionist nudes, before he turned towards Ingres and Italy. The dating of the present work invites particular comparison with É tude de nu of circa 1880 in the collection of the Musée Rodin. Whilst both paintings display a similarly freely brushed background, the more sculptural form of Étude de nu and the greater linearity of the figure - particularly the face and upper body - indicate that by the early 1880s, Renoir's work was already undergoing a stylistic shift. This shift is generally ascribed to his study of the work of Ingres and his subsequent trip to Italy where he studied Raphael's frescoes in Rome and Pompeian wall paintings in Naples. The influences he assimilated are evident in his later paintings of the nude such as Baigneuse assise of circa 1883-84 (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard), where there is a noticeable distinction between the treatment of the crisply delineated, classicised figure and the more sketchily handled background. By contrast, in Buste de femme nue, the woman's flesh has been painted in such a way that there is a synthesis between the tones of her skin and flowing hair and the multi-coloured haze of the background.
Renoir had explored this fusion between figure and background earlier in Étude (known as Torse de femme au soleil), exhibited at the second Impressionist group exhibition of 1876. Whereas Étude suggested the transitory and ephemeral through effects of dappled light, the model in Buste de femme nue is invested with a greater sense of presence and timelessness. This is emphasised by the non-specific background, the lack of any narrative context and the model's simple seated pose, itself foreshadowing those of his later monumental nudes.