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Lot Essay
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Renoir catalogue critique being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute and established from the archive funds of François Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and Wildenstein.
We are grateful to Guy-Patrice and Michel Dauberville for confirming that this picture is included in their Bernheim-Jeune archives as an authentic work.
The present work's depiction of two figures, one wearing a worker's blue smock and apparently carrying a bundle, crossing on a pathway through a semi-urban landscape, with the sense that in the distance the road falls away downhill, suggests that the subject here is the butte of Montmartre. However, such is the close relation of the present work to another Renoir illustrated in John Rewald's The History of Impressionism (New York, 1973, p. 132), which formerly belonged to Lise Tréhot, Renoir's model and lover, that there is also the possibility that the present work was painted at Marlotte near Fontainebleau. Renoir stayed in Marlotte on a number of accasions form 1865, staying as a guest of his friend Jules Le Coeur, who was also on good terms with Corot. If this is the case, the work then probably dates from the later 1860s. In Marlotte, where he encountered his idol Courbet, Renoir worked alongside Sisley and occasionally Monet and Pissarro.
The fluid handling and glowing tonality of the present work would suggest that it was painted rapidly in the open air. Noting the extemporary qualities of Renoir's early work, Lawrence Gowing observed: 'The ways that Renoir's contemporaries painted were each comparatively consistent. Renoir decided how he would paint empirically, if not waywardly. The even granulation of colour in sunlight with which Monet and Pissarro explored landscape in the seventies was only one of the styles that opened to him. Liquid or crumbled dappling was equally possible. The tone was for preference bright and silvery, streaked or flecked with detail, it seemed on impulse' (Renoir, London, 1985, p. 33).
Emile Roche (1893-1990), who was Président of the French Conseil économique from 1954-1974, was a distinguished collector as well as statesman. He owned the present work and it has remained with the family to the present day.
We are grateful to Guy-Patrice and Michel Dauberville for confirming that this picture is included in their Bernheim-Jeune archives as an authentic work.
The present work's depiction of two figures, one wearing a worker's blue smock and apparently carrying a bundle, crossing on a pathway through a semi-urban landscape, with the sense that in the distance the road falls away downhill, suggests that the subject here is the butte of Montmartre. However, such is the close relation of the present work to another Renoir illustrated in John Rewald's The History of Impressionism (New York, 1973, p. 132), which formerly belonged to Lise Tréhot, Renoir's model and lover, that there is also the possibility that the present work was painted at Marlotte near Fontainebleau. Renoir stayed in Marlotte on a number of accasions form 1865, staying as a guest of his friend Jules Le Coeur, who was also on good terms with Corot. If this is the case, the work then probably dates from the later 1860s. In Marlotte, where he encountered his idol Courbet, Renoir worked alongside Sisley and occasionally Monet and Pissarro.
The fluid handling and glowing tonality of the present work would suggest that it was painted rapidly in the open air. Noting the extemporary qualities of Renoir's early work, Lawrence Gowing observed: 'The ways that Renoir's contemporaries painted were each comparatively consistent. Renoir decided how he would paint empirically, if not waywardly. The even granulation of colour in sunlight with which Monet and Pissarro explored landscape in the seventies was only one of the styles that opened to him. Liquid or crumbled dappling was equally possible. The tone was for preference bright and silvery, streaked or flecked with detail, it seemed on impulse' (Renoir, London, 1985, p. 33).
Emile Roche (1893-1990), who was Président of the French Conseil économique from 1954-1974, was a distinguished collector as well as statesman. He owned the present work and it has remained with the family to the present day.