Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Galerie Tanner, Zurich
Private Collection, Switzerland (sold:  Sotheby's, London, December 4, 1990, lot 4)
Sam Porter Fine Arts, Great Neck, New York
Acquired from the above, October 1996

Ambroise  Vollard, Tableaux, Pastels et Dessins de Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paris, 1918, vol. I, no. 237, illustrated

Renoir was sixty years old when his third son, Claude, was born on August 4, 1901.  To the elderly artist the birth of Claude, called “Coco” by his parents, was an affirmation of life, and, as Jean Renoir later recalled, the blonde child would become “one of the most prolific inspirations my father ever had” (Jean Renoir, “Pierre-Auguste Renoir, mon père,” Paris, 1981, quoted in Colin B. Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits Impressions of an Age (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa, 1997-98, p. 236).

In the present work, Claude is depicted wearing a wide-collared yellow and rose shirt with jaunty bows adorning his neck and hair.  Although small in scale, this work is carefully executed with precise strokes of richly-hued pigment and subtle washes of color.  Renoir’s portraits of Coco document the growth of the boy from shortly after his birth through early adulthood and are a testament to the bond of father and son.