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Lot Essay
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Renoir catalogue critique being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute and established from the archive funds of François Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and Wildenstein.
This work will be included in the second supplement of the catalogue raisonné des Tableaux, Pastels, Dessins et Aquarelles de Pierre-Auguste Renoir being prepared by Guy-Patrice and Florianne Dauberville published by Editions Bernheim-Jeune.
Depicting some voluptuous, enticing blooms, Anémones dans un vase vert offers a vivid example of the flaming tones that Pierre-Auguste Renoir embraced with enthusiasm at the beginning of the 1900s. Executed with broad, rich brushstrokes and exploring a wide range of red and pink tones, the picture illustrates Renoir’s virtuosity, as it evokes the frailty of the flowers while maintaining a certain immediacy of execution. Although tapping into the classic tradition of flower paintings, works such as Anémones dans un vase vert constituted a sort of symbolic transposition of the female body for Renoir. The sensuous, fleshy petals of the flowers became vehicles to the representation of the female body, a subject that occupied him consistently throughout the 1900s. Renoir confessed to the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, that he saw flowers as ‘research of flesh-tones for a nude’ (quoted in M. Lucy, J. House, Renoir in the Barnes Foundation, New Haven and London, 2012, p. 263). Even more explicitly, he once compared anemones with the female sex (Reported in de Butler, Renoir: Écrits, Entretiens et Lettres sur l’Art, Paris, 2002, p. 207).
Flower paintings such as Anémones dans un vase vert also offered Renoir the chance for intrepid experiments with colour. ‘Painting flowers rests my brain’, he stated, ‘I do not bring the same tension to them as I do when I am face to face with a model. When I paint flowers, I place colours and experiment with values boldly, without worrying about wasting a canvas. I wouldn’t dare do this with a figure, for fear of spoiling the whole thing’ (quoted in M. Lucy, Ibid., p. 263). Flower paintings encouraged Renoir to challenge his own technique, pushing him to explore new depths of colours.
Works such as Anémones dans un vase vert found an enthusiastic supporter in the famous American collector Dr. Albert C. Barnes, whose legendary collection would become the pride of The Barnes Foundation in 1922. Barnes considered Renoir’s late production to be the artist’s apotheosis; Anémones dans un vase vert offers a splendid example of that ‘loose juicy colourful richness that [Renoir] alone could put in a painting’ which entranced the collector so deeply (A.C. Barnes quoted in M. Lucy, Late Renoir in the Collections of Albert C. Barnes and Leo Stein, pp. 110-120, in Renoir in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Los Angeles and Philadelphia, 2010, p. 112).
Anémones dans un vase vert originates from the distinguished collection of Georges Schick, a notable donor to the Museum of Modern Art, whose holding featured works by the likes of Amedeo Modigliani and Georges Rouault.
This work will be included in the second supplement of the catalogue raisonné des Tableaux, Pastels, Dessins et Aquarelles de Pierre-Auguste Renoir being prepared by Guy-Patrice and Florianne Dauberville published by Editions Bernheim-Jeune.
Depicting some voluptuous, enticing blooms, Anémones dans un vase vert offers a vivid example of the flaming tones that Pierre-Auguste Renoir embraced with enthusiasm at the beginning of the 1900s. Executed with broad, rich brushstrokes and exploring a wide range of red and pink tones, the picture illustrates Renoir’s virtuosity, as it evokes the frailty of the flowers while maintaining a certain immediacy of execution. Although tapping into the classic tradition of flower paintings, works such as Anémones dans un vase vert constituted a sort of symbolic transposition of the female body for Renoir. The sensuous, fleshy petals of the flowers became vehicles to the representation of the female body, a subject that occupied him consistently throughout the 1900s. Renoir confessed to the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, that he saw flowers as ‘research of flesh-tones for a nude’ (quoted in M. Lucy, J. House, Renoir in the Barnes Foundation, New Haven and London, 2012, p. 263). Even more explicitly, he once compared anemones with the female sex (Reported in de Butler, Renoir: Écrits, Entretiens et Lettres sur l’Art, Paris, 2002, p. 207).
Flower paintings such as Anémones dans un vase vert also offered Renoir the chance for intrepid experiments with colour. ‘Painting flowers rests my brain’, he stated, ‘I do not bring the same tension to them as I do when I am face to face with a model. When I paint flowers, I place colours and experiment with values boldly, without worrying about wasting a canvas. I wouldn’t dare do this with a figure, for fear of spoiling the whole thing’ (quoted in M. Lucy, Ibid., p. 263). Flower paintings encouraged Renoir to challenge his own technique, pushing him to explore new depths of colours.
Works such as Anémones dans un vase vert found an enthusiastic supporter in the famous American collector Dr. Albert C. Barnes, whose legendary collection would become the pride of The Barnes Foundation in 1922. Barnes considered Renoir’s late production to be the artist’s apotheosis; Anémones dans un vase vert offers a splendid example of that ‘loose juicy colourful richness that [Renoir] alone could put in a painting’ which entranced the collector so deeply (A.C. Barnes quoted in M. Lucy, Late Renoir in the Collections of Albert C. Barnes and Leo Stein, pp. 110-120, in Renoir in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Los Angeles and Philadelphia, 2010, p. 112).
Anémones dans un vase vert originates from the distinguished collection of Georges Schick, a notable donor to the Museum of Modern Art, whose holding featured works by the likes of Amedeo Modigliani and Georges Rouault.