PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR | Baigneuse assise

Durand-Ruel, Paris
W. Somerset Maugham, Cap Ferrat (sold: Sotheby's, London, 10th April 1962, lot 31)
Sale: Sotheby's, Tokyo, 3rd October 1969, lot 383
Kintetsu Department Store Co. Ltd., Tokyo
Private Collection, Toyko (acquired from the above in August 1984)
Opera Gallery, London
Edda Collection, USA (sold: Christie's, New York, 2nd November 2011, lot 272)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Wynne Jeudwine, 'Modern Paintings from the Collection of W. Somerset Maugham' in Apollo, October 1956, illustrated p. 106 
William Somerset Maugham, Purely for my Pleasure, London, 1962, pl. XXXI, illustrated p. 24 & on the cover (titled Nude (Gabrielle))
William Somerset Maugham, 'Why and How I Collected: By Maugham' in The New York Times, 1st April 1962, illustrated pp. 13-15 (titled Seated Nude (Andrée))
Guy-Patrice & Michel Dauberville (eds.), Renoir, Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 1911-1919, Paris, 2014, vol. V, no. 4317, illustrated p. 412 (titled Nu assis (Andrée))

Please contact the Impressionist and Modern Art Department (Phoebe.Liu@sothebys.com) for the condition report for this lot.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Renoir once proclaimed, as his friend Berthe Morisot recounted, that nudes were 'one of the essential forms of art’ (Denis Rouart (ed.), Berthe Morisot, the Correspondence with her Family and Friends, New York, 1987, p. 145). It is unsurprising therefore that the nude, and more precisely the female nude, was paramount in Renoir’s artistic practice. The present work, hailing from the artist’s later years, represents a culmination of this lifetime of study. In Baigneuse assise, Renoir paints the female nude in soft and loose brushstrokes, building up the surface of the canvas with variations in colour and tone that capture the rounded fullness and tender corporeality of the figure. Elements of the body almost blend with the background, creating areas of fusion and undefined form that add a suppleness and fluidity to the composition. The painter Maurice Denis describes this unique style: ‘Renoir’s lyricism, his sense of sculptural form, transfigured [his nude models]. They are not idealised – thank God! They have become shapes and colours. The world in which they put pearly white, fleshy bodies on display is the world of painting; such is the magic of this art that they are nothing more than the luminous rose, traced in pearl-gray, lavender, and green, supported by harmonious volumes, by masses in equilibrium. Signs, symbols, images of Renoir’s optimistic sensibility, they keep nothing from nature except that which the painter wants them to keep for our intellectual pleasure and visual delight’ (M. Denis in Renoir. The Body, The Senses (exhibition catalogue), Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, 2019, p. 119).

In this sense, these masterful nudes, from the twilight of the artist’s life, constitute this pure desire to recreate an idyllic world largely undisturbed by references to modernity. In so doing, an ailing Renoir frees both the model, and perhaps also the artist himself, from the individual ravages of time and space. With their classical postures, his nudes reflect a historical continuity and, through repeated studies, these figures became his motifs, their bodies transformed under his brush into the full and rounded silhouettes that are distinctive of Renoir’s œuvre.

Previously in the collection of the English playwright and novelist W Somerset Maugham, the present work has notable provenance. An esteemed collector of Impressionist and Modern art, Maugham’s collection was housed at his magnificent villa on Cape Ferrat where he entertained some of the most important artists, literary figures and politicians of the twentieth century.



This work is accompanied by an Attestation of Inclusion from the Wildenstein Institute, and it will be included in the forthcoming Renoir Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.