Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Ambroise Vollard, Paris (1890)

Jules Strauss, Paris (sold: Galerie Georges Petit, Collection Jules Strauss, Paris, December 15, 1932,  lot 76)

André Schoeller, Paris (acquired at the above sale)

Fernand Bouisson, Paris (circa 1933)

Jacques Lindon, Paris & New York

Leonard Hutton Gallery, New York (acquired from the above)

Charles R. Lachman, New York (acquired from the above in February 1967)

Mrs. Robert J. Arnold (inherited from the above in 1978)

Nerlino-McGear Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1984

Ambroise Vollard, Tableaux, pastels et dessins de Pierre-Auguste Renoir, vol. I, Paris, 1918, no. 78, illustrated p. 20

Guy-Patrice & Michel Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vol. II, Paris, 2009, no. 1366, illustrated p. 427 (titled Etude de nu)

 

Very good condition. The tacking edges of the original canvas have been reinforced with a strip lining. The paint layer is clean and fresh. Under UV light, one 2 ½ inch hairline retouching is visible in the lower right hand corner; several scattered lines of inpainting are visible along lower center edge of painting; one small nail-head size spot of inpainting along lower left hand edge of canvas ; one pin-point spot of inpainting 1" above crook of elbow. These minimal retouchings are on the extreme periphery and do not affect the central composition, which is over all in excellent 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.

Baigneuse is an exceptional example of Renoir's key subject, rendered at a fascinating moment in his career. The 1880s mark a period in which Renoir returned repeatedly to the subject of the female nude in a landscape. Painted between the years of 1885-1890, Baigneuse was created at the pinnacle of his achievements in this style. More than any other avant-garde painter of the late nineteenth century, aside from Degas, Renoir focused his energy on the subject of the female nude, and the results he achieved were both unique and striking.

The development of Renoir's style in depicting his nudes draws from both his early experience as an Impressionist painter and the influence of a trip he took to Italy in 1881, when he went to see works by Raphael and other Renaissance masters. Renoir's approach to this subject underwent a series of transformations in the 1870s and 1880s, creating an aesthetic that would become the epitome of Renoir's art.

When Renoir began painting with other Impressionist artists, he favored quick, loose brushstrokes, illustrating the effects of plein-air painting and natural light, shown in Nu au soleil (fig. 1) of 1875. During the 1880s, Renoir began to stray from his emphasis of color over line after seeing the precision of forms and subtle light coloration in the works of the Renaissance masters and the palette of the French Rococo artists. Emile Verhaeren, a contemporary poet and art critic of Renoir, summed up the artist's paintings of this period and highlights the quality of Renoir's stylistic details illustrated in the present work. Verhaeren writes, "Here... is an utterly new vision, a quite unexpected interpretation of reality to solicit our imagination.  Nothing is fresher, more alive and pulsating with blood and sexuality, than these bodies and faces as he portrays them.  Where have they come from, those light and vibrating tones that caress arms, necks, and shoulders, and give a sensation of soft flesh and porousness?  The backgrounds are suffusions of air and light; they are vague because they must not distract us" (quoted in G. Muesham, ed., French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism: A Library of Art Criticism, New York, 1970, pp. 511-12).

The greatest manifestation of this technique is seen in Renoir's Les Grandes baigneuses of 1887 (fig. 2). Renoir began to exchange the immediacy of scenes of everyday life with the permanence of more traditional subject matter, as well as the influence of classical painting techniques. Baigneuse is likely an antecedent to the aforementioned 1887 painting, as well as a bold representation of the developing style that would govern Renoir's art in years to come.

John House writes the following on Renoir's fascination with the subject of the female nude in outdoor settings: "On his travels Renoir painted many landscapes and informal outdoor subjects, but his more serious efforts were reserved for themes which tread the borderline between everyday life and idyll-themes with obvious echoes of eighteenth century art.  He painted a long series of nudes, mainly young girls in outdoor settings, whom in a letter he called his 'nymphs.'  Mainly single figures at first, he brought them together in groups around 1897 in several pictures of girls playing which translate the subject of the 1887 Bathers into a fluent informality very reminiscent of Fragonard's Bathers (Musée du Louvre, Paris)" (John House, Renoir (exhibition catalogue), London, The Hayward Gallery, 1985, pp. 250-51).

Among the first owners of La Baigneuse was Jules Strauss, a major collector of Impressionist paintings during the early 20th century.  The painting was purchased at the sale of Strauss' collection in 1932 by André Schoeller, who was most likely responsible for selling it to Fernand Bouisson around 1933.  Bouisson served as France's President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1937 until 1936 and briefly as Prime Minister of the country in 1935.  In the second-half of the century, La Baigneuse came into the possession of Charles Lachman, one of the principle founders of the Revlon cosmetics company who kept it until his death.  For over a quarter of a century, the picture has remained with a private collector from the American midwest.