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拍品專文
This work will be included in the forthcoming Pierre-Auguste Renoir Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
Portraiture occupies a fundamental place in Renoir’s oeuvre. The artist owed his first public success to an ambitious family portrait, Portrait de Madame Charpentier et ses enfants (fig. 1) exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1879 and whose main model, Madame Charpentier—the wife of the publisher of Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, the Goncourt brothers and Joris-Karl Huysmans—was behind the rise in Renoir's portrait commissions at the start of the 1880s.
Although from the early 1890s, Renoir's dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel—observing a drop in demand for portraits from collectors—tried to convince him to reduce his production of this type of work, the artist remained very attached to portraiture. Between 1890 and 1900, the subject of most of his work was "figures in elegant modern dress—young ladies often wearing fantastic hats, some head-and-shoulders, some half body, others full length, alone or with a companion" (J. House, Renoir, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 1985, p. 255).
Madame Paul Gallimard illustrates Renoir's expertise in both the art of portraiture and his new modern techniques in the early 1890s. The present work is a portrait of Lucie Duché, daughter of the Parisian businessman Jean-Baptiste Duché, who married Paul Gallimard, founder of the Gallimard publishing house. “Paul Gallimard had studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. This early patron of the Impressionists amassed an astonishing collection of over two hundred of their works, perhaps modelling his activities on his father Gustave’s prior patronage of painters of the Barbizon school. Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a particular favourite; Gallimard, who in 1892 paid for a month’s holiday for the pair in Madrid, owned sixteen of his works. Among these was Renoir’s portrait of Gallimard’s wife, Lucie, whom Goncourt described ‘as a brunette with soft black eyes, sometimes questioning eyes like those of female sphinxes’” (W.Z. Silverman, op. cit., p. 119).
Although executed very delicately, Madame Gallimard stands out clearly from the green background, which is reduced to a simple colored backdrop and, far from invading the figure, makes her stand out even more, encircling her shoulders and highlighting the dark tones of her hair and eyes, as well as the fresh pink accents of her skin and dress.
With this gracious and elegant portrait, Renoir distinguishes himself as a great portraitist. Paul Gauguin had also noticed all the suggestive power of the artist's work: "Nothing is in place with Renoir. Do not look for lines, they do not exist. As if by magic a little dash of colour or a caressing light communicates enough. On cheeks, like on a peach, a layer of downy hairs undulate, stirred by the breeze of love which plays its music to the ears" (quoted in Renoir in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 2009, p. 87).
Portraiture occupies a fundamental place in Renoir’s oeuvre. The artist owed his first public success to an ambitious family portrait, Portrait de Madame Charpentier et ses enfants (fig. 1) exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1879 and whose main model, Madame Charpentier—the wife of the publisher of Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, the Goncourt brothers and Joris-Karl Huysmans—was behind the rise in Renoir's portrait commissions at the start of the 1880s.
Although from the early 1890s, Renoir's dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel—observing a drop in demand for portraits from collectors—tried to convince him to reduce his production of this type of work, the artist remained very attached to portraiture. Between 1890 and 1900, the subject of most of his work was "figures in elegant modern dress—young ladies often wearing fantastic hats, some head-and-shoulders, some half body, others full length, alone or with a companion" (J. House, Renoir, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 1985, p. 255).
Madame Paul Gallimard illustrates Renoir's expertise in both the art of portraiture and his new modern techniques in the early 1890s. The present work is a portrait of Lucie Duché, daughter of the Parisian businessman Jean-Baptiste Duché, who married Paul Gallimard, founder of the Gallimard publishing house. “Paul Gallimard had studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. This early patron of the Impressionists amassed an astonishing collection of over two hundred of their works, perhaps modelling his activities on his father Gustave’s prior patronage of painters of the Barbizon school. Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a particular favourite; Gallimard, who in 1892 paid for a month’s holiday for the pair in Madrid, owned sixteen of his works. Among these was Renoir’s portrait of Gallimard’s wife, Lucie, whom Goncourt described ‘as a brunette with soft black eyes, sometimes questioning eyes like those of female sphinxes’” (W.Z. Silverman, op. cit., p. 119).
Although executed very delicately, Madame Gallimard stands out clearly from the green background, which is reduced to a simple colored backdrop and, far from invading the figure, makes her stand out even more, encircling her shoulders and highlighting the dark tones of her hair and eyes, as well as the fresh pink accents of her skin and dress.
With this gracious and elegant portrait, Renoir distinguishes himself as a great portraitist. Paul Gauguin had also noticed all the suggestive power of the artist's work: "Nothing is in place with Renoir. Do not look for lines, they do not exist. As if by magic a little dash of colour or a caressing light communicates enough. On cheeks, like on a peach, a layer of downy hairs undulate, stirred by the breeze of love which plays its music to the ears" (quoted in Renoir in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 2009, p. 87).