- 113
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Description
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Petite baigneuse
- Signed Renoir (lower right)
- Oil on panel
- 3 1/2 by 2 5/8 in.
- 9.0 by 6.7 cm
Provenance
Sam Salz, New York
Acquired from the above in 1954
Exhibited
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.
Catalogue Note
Emile Verhaeren, a contemporary poet and art critic of Renoir, summed up the artist's paintings of nudes 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 Gerd Muehsam, ed., French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism: A Library of Art Criticism, New York, 1970, pp. 511-12).
Petit baigneuse is related to the larger composition Étude. Torse, effet de soleil (see fig. 1), exhibited during the second Impressionist group exhibition of 1876. Shortly after this show Étude. Torse, effet de soleil was purchased by Gustave Caillebotte who bequeathed it to the French state upon his death. Initially in the Musée du Luxembourg, then the Louvre, it now resides in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.