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Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Andrée au chignon,…
See original version (French)
240
-
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Andrée au chignon,…
See original version (French)
Estimate €200,000 - €250,000
Voluntary lot
Please note that this lot is subject to restrictions.
If you would like to bid on this lot, we invite you to contact the office by email at [email protected]Description
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Andrée au chignon, 1919
Canvas.
Studio stamp lower left.
Height 30.4 Width 28 cm.
Provenance: the artist's estate; former collection of the Bernheim-Jeune gallery, Paris, 1919.
The last portrait on canvas painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1919 entitled Andrée au chignon (Andrée with a hair bun).
Notice of inclusion in the critical catalogue of the painter by the Wildenstein Institute, 27 March 2015.
Art Loss Register, 19 April 2024, no. S00242360.
Bibliography:
- "L'atelier de Renoir, tome II", Bernheim Jeune, Paris, 1931, pl 227, n°719 ;
- Guy-Patrice and Michel Dauberville, "Catalogue raisonné des tableaux pastel, dessins et aquarelles 1911-1919", Berheim-Jeune, 2014, reproduced p 359, n°4248.
THE LAST PORTRAIT PAINTED BY RENOIR
The last portrait published in Bernheim Jeune's retrospective catalogue "L'atelier de Renoir" in 1931 under no. 719, this painting was followed only by the master's last work, "Pommes", painted two days before his death. The young woman depicted is a 19-year-old redhead who brightened the last years of a man crippled by arthritis, immobilised in his wheelchair and whose fingers had to be attached to a brush so that he could paint. Madeleine Heuschling (1900-1979), known as Andrée, entered Renoir's life in 1915, having been sent there by Matisse. Matisse had met this model of singular beauty at the Ecole d'Art Décoratif in Nice, and was struck by her resemblance to "a Renoir". After Gabrielle, Andrée became the painter's muse, who confided: "How beautiful she is! I wore out my old eyes on her young skin and I saw that I was not a master but a child".
A prodigious cry of love
With Dédée, Renoir continued his tireless quest for feminine sensuality: the slightest rose in her hair became an allegory of beauty, and the nature in the middle of which she posed nude, an evocation of dreamy Antiquity. In 1916, after the death of his wife, Renoir returned to Paris where his son Jean, wounded at the front, was convalescing. The young man in turn fell under the spell of Andrée, about whom he wrote in his memoirs: "Her skin repelled the light even less than that of all the models Renoir had had in his life. She sang fashionable refrains in a slightly false voice, was cheerful and gave my father the invigorating fragrance of her blossoming youth. Andrée was one of the living elements that helped Renoir to fix on canvas the prodigious cry of love at the end of his life.
The father's muse... and then the son's!
Back at the Collettes estate, in Cagnes-sur-Mer, one posing session followed another. Andrée inspired Renoir to create his last great testament canvas, with its diluted forms and vibrant colours: Les baigneuses, which his sons gave to France (1918-1919, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, RF 2795). The artist died at home on 3 December 1919, but not before immortalising Dédée in this last portrait, her hair raised on her head, her blue eyes turned to the right, her attentive smile standing out against a background of greenery. Renoir paid particular attention to the face, leaving the background bare in places or sketched in with broad brushstrokes, like an intimate testament to his last model. Less than two months later, Andrée became Madame Jean Renoir, who married her in January 1920 with the intention of making her a film star, under the name Catherine Hessling. After inspiring the Impressionist master's last years, the young woman from Nice became the muse of a flamboyant pioneer of French cinema!
See original version (French)
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