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Artist or Maker: PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919)

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Description: Signed and dated Renoir.82. (lower right)
Oil on canvas

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Dimensions: 39 1/4 by 32in. 99.7 by 81.3cm

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Provenance: Property from a Private Collection
Durand-Ruel, Paris (on consignment from the artist from 1883-1886)
Durand-Ruel, New York (purchased from the artist in 1886)
Albert Spencer, New York (acquired from the above in 1886 and until circa 1900)
Mrs. Spencer, Paris
Georges Petit, Paris (1911)
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (1913)
Etienne Bignou, Paris
Alex. Reid and Lefevre, London (1929)
Knoedler and Co., New York
Acquired in 1937

Exhibited:
London, Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell, La Société des Impressionnistes, 1883
Brussels, Les XX, 3ème Exposition, 1886 (titled Sur le banc)
New York, Madison Square South, American Arts Galleries and American Art Association, The Impressionists of Paris, Works in Oil and Pastel, 1886
Chicago, World's Columbian Exhibition, Loan Collection, Foreign Masterpieces owned in the United States, 1893
Paris, Hôtel de la Revue des Arts, Exposition d'Art Moderne, 1912
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Renoir, 1913, no. 23
Paris, Cinquante Renoir, Paris, 1927
New York, Knoedler & Co., The Classical Period of Renoir, 1929, no. VIII
Lucerne, Exposition de peintures de l'Ecole impressionniste et n/e'/o-impressionniste, 1929, no. 15
Glasgow, Ten Masterpieces by Nineteenth Century French Painters, 1929, no. 5
London, Alex. Reid and Lefevre, Masterpieces by the 19th Century French Painters, 1929, no. 4
New York, Knoedler Gallery, Figure Pieces, 1937, no. 18
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Renoir, His Paintings, 1937, no. 37

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Notes: Literature:
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, letter to Paul Bérard, 22 June 1882 with its accompanying sketch
Octave Mirbeau, Renoir, Paris, 1913, illustrated p. 20
Ambroise Vollard, Tableaux Pastels & Dessins de Pierre-Auguste Renoir, vol. I, Paris, 1918, no. 354, illustrated p. 89
Julius Meier-Gaefe, "Renoir I," Kunst und Künstler, Berlin, November 1916, illustrated p. 45
L'Art moderne, vol. II, Paris, 1919, illustrated pl. 110
Georges Lecomte, "L'Oeuvre de Renoir," L'Art et les Artistes, Paris, 1920, no. 4, illustrated p. 146
"Glanes," Bulletin de la Vie Artistique, Paris, August 1, 1925, illustrated p. 339
Carroll Carstairs, "Renoir," Apollo, London, July 1929, illustrated on cover and between pp. 32-33
Art News, New York, November 9, 1929, illustrated on cover
Scottish Country Life, Edinburgh, May 1929
The Studio, London, July 1929
The New York Times, November 10, 1929, illustrated
Michael Florisoone, Renoir, London and Toronto, 1937, illustrated p. 78
Henri Dauberville, La Bataille de l'impressionnisme, Paris, 1967, illustrated p. 552
François Daulte, Auguste Renoir, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, vol. I, Lausanne, 1971, no. 428, illustrated pl. 428
Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir, His Life, Art and Letters, New York, 1984, illustrated p. 127
Elda Fezzi and Jacqueline Henry, Tout l'ouevre peint de Renoir, période impressionniste, 1869-1883, Paris, 1985, no. 511, illustrated p. 110
John House and Anne Distel, Renoir (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London, 1985, illustrated p. 238
Ambroise Vollard, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paintings, Pastels and Drawings, San Francisco, 1989, no. 354, illustrated p. 89 (as dating from 1880)
Colin B. Bailey, Renoir's Portraits, Impressions of an Age (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1997, fig. 94, illustrated p. 190
Sona Johnston and John House, Faces of Impressionism, Portraits from American Collections (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Art, Baltimore, 1999, discussed p. 25

This outstanding Impressionist painting has not been exhibited publicly since 1937 when it was included in Renoir, His Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rarely does a painting of such importance disappear from view for such long periods, and its reemergence is certain to be of great interest to all with an appreciation of the history of Impressionist painting.

Dans les Roses ranks among Renoir's most beautiful and significant figurative works. The overall quality of the paint handling and execution place it in a category that includes such well known images by the artist as La Loge, 1874, Sleeping Girl with a Cat, 1880, Two Sisters, 1881, and the multiple portraits that appear in Renoir's famous Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-81. It is an exceedingly effective synthesis of the best characteristics of Renoir's ``high'' or ``classic'' Impressionist style of the 1870s and the more linear manner that he began to experiment with in the early 1880s.

The circumstances surrounding its execution are well known; ``The commission had originated in the summer of 1882, when Renoir was invited to paint the portrait of Madame Clapisson in the garden of the couple's mansion at Neuilly" (Colin B. Bailey, Renoir's Portraits, Impressions of an Age (exhibition catalogue), Ottawa, 1997, p. 202). Interestingly, it is the first of two portraits of Valentine Clapisson (see figs. 1 and 2) that Renoir painted in 1882-83. Curiously, this remarkable painting was rejected by the sitter's husband, Louis Aime Clapisson (see fig. 3). `` `Done in very light tones and with flowers of vivid hue around the model,' this was found too daring, and Renoir had to paint a second picture, in soberer tones, which was accepted (Duret 1924)'' (John House in Arts Council of Great Britain, et al., Renoir (exhibition catalogue), London, 1985, p. 238). The second example (see fig. 4) is considerably tamer, more conventional and far less interesting as a work of art, but it is more patently a portrait of a prominent figure in Parisian society of the early 1880s. Duret notes that Dans les Roses was eventually sold by Durand-Ruel as a subject picture, not as a portrait (Théodore Duret, Renoir, Paris, 1924). In any case, Renoir later recalled ``that charming Mme Clapisson, whose portrait I did twice, with what pleasure" (as quoted in House, op. cit., p. 238).

Dans les Roses depicts Marie Henriette Valentine Billet Clapisson (October, 20 1849 - August 30, 1930), the thirty-two-year-old wife of a Parisian gentleman of independent means (``un rentier''). She is shown "taking tea in the garden" (Bailey, op. cit., p. 202) in 1882. At that time her husband was in the midst of creating a collection of approximately two-hundred works of art; as Anne Distel points out, ``. . . it is clear that Clapisson's collection was above all a collection of `modern' art. While he began with more classic pieces (by Delacroix and Corot, for example, as well as the Barbizon School and the Realists), he gradually moved on to works by the Impressionists, along with a variety of other artists" (Anne Distel, "Léon Clapisson: Patron and Collector,'' in Colin B. Bailey, Renoir's Portraits, Impressions of an Age, Ottawa, 1997, p. 79). Léon Clapisson and his charming young wife (she was thirteen years younger) lived in an impressive private residence (hôtel-particulier) at 48 rue de Charles Lafitte in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a fashionable suburb on the edge of Paris. Léon's father had been quite well known as a musician and composer during his lifetime, and as a result Léon moved easily in social circles in Paris. Moreover, Bailey observes, ``Valentine had established herself as a hostess of some distinction - her white sauce was discussed in the society pages of La Vie Moderne in June 1879 - yet it was only after her husband's interest in modern art took a sharp turn towards the Impressionists that Renoir was called upon to paint her portrait. [Renoir's dealer] Durand-Ruel may have been the conduit here'' (Bailey, op. cit., p. 202). It is also possible that Léon Clapisson had been introduced to the artist by such friends as Monsieur et Madame Georges Charpentier. Charpentier, well known as the publisher of Flaubert, Zola, and the de Goncourt brothers, had commissioned a portrait of his wife and children in 1879 that was extremely well received in the Salon of 1879 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

The early exhibition history and provenance of Dans les Roses is extremely interesting. As John House has revealed, ``. . . the first portrait of Madame Clapisson (misrecorded by Daulte in 1971, no. 428) is a telling indication of the different outlets available for different types of picture. As Duret (1924) recounts, 'the rejected portrait, with the model fixed so that it would not be too recognizable, was sold as a picture [as opposed to a portrait] and was one of the first works of Renoir to go to America'; since the model belonged to the bourgeoisie, her identity had thus to be disguised before the painting could be sold as a subject picture through the art trade. Renoir deposited it in April 1883 with Durand-Ruel, who sent it to the 1883 exhibition at Dowdeswell's in London; Renoir took it back from Durand-Ruel in 1884 and was still its owner in 1884 when he sent it, with the title Sur le banc, to [the exhibition organized by the avant-garde group known as] Les XX in Brussels early in 1886; Durand-Ruel shipped it to New York in 1886, but only bought it from Renoir when a buyer, Albert Spencer, appeared in New York. Spencer then lent it to the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, where it was the only work by Renoir to appear [in the Loan Collection, not the official French section]" (House, op. cit., p. 238). After Spencer's wife sold it in 1911, the painting was owned by no fewer than five prominent dealers, but it has been in the same collection since it was acquired in 1937.

Comparables
Fig. 1, Valentine Clapisson, circa 1875, photograph by Tourtin
Fig. 2, Pen sketch by Renoir for the first portrait of Madame Clapisson, from a letter to Paul Bérard, 22 June 1882, Private Collection
Fig. 3, Léon Clapisson, circa 1875, photograph by Délié, Private Collection
Fig. 4, Pierre- Auguste Renoir, Madame Clapisson, 1883, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
Fig. 5, The cover of Apollo magazine, July 1929, featuring the present work
Fig. 6, The cover of The Art News, November 9, 1929, featuring the present work