L'Enfant au Biscuit - Portrait de Jean Renoir. Child with a Biscuit - A Portrait of the Artist's Son Jean Renoir. by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919

Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919
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L'Enfant au Biscuit - Portrait de Jean Renoir. Child with a Biscuit - A Portrait of the Artist's Son Jean Renoir.

Original lithograph in black ink. 1898/99. Absolutely exceptional first proof impression, hand printed direct from the original stone. Before any edition impressions. Hand-printed at the studio of Clot, Paris 1899. Subsequently issued in an edition of 100 impressions with
added colours. Of the utmost rarity in this form.
Ref: Stella - Renoir Graphic Work no 31. Delteil 31.

Provenance: Auguste Clot, with his inscription 'épreuve d'essai en noir' trial proof in black.
Outstandingly rich and brilliant trial proof impression. On off-white chine volant paper, as typically used by Clot for proofs. Print in excellent condition; tear in outer right margin repaired, 2 1/2ins clear of the image. Full sheet: 22 1/4 x 16 7/8ins. Image: 12 5/8 x 10 1/2. 322x268mm.

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An absolutely exceptional hand-printed first proof from the stone. The only true pre-edition proof that we have ever seen (see notes below). The brilliant hand-wiped inking gives the image a quality of tone and plasticity in the modelling which is absent in the edition impressions.

L?Enfant au Biscuit, a study of Renoir?s second son Jean, was the second of the three large-scale lithographs which Renoir drew for Ambroise Vollard. Vollard wanted the editions to be in colour. To this end Renoir drew the image on stone in black and then worked with the printer Clot on creating colour stones derived from a hand-coloured impression. The full colour edition of this print includes blue eyes and some white, but most of the colour edition is in six colours lacking these stones. What are frequently described as proofs are also found with just one or two colours, such as pink. In reality these are incomplete impressions. Most interesting of all is to compare the normal black ink impressions of this image with the proof illustrated above. In the colour versions the black is really a strong grey which was printed first. The black impressions have just the grey-black that should have supported colours.

This proof is in a totally different black; the black is rich dark and tonal. An examination of the edge of the image also shows that it still has the relief from the broken indents on the edge of the stone that Renoir used. In the usual monochrome and colour versions this shows no edge. This could suggest that the black used in the colour versions, and in the monochrome ones, was in fact printed from a transfer stone (used to soften the tonality for the intended colours) rather than from the original stone. This impression has the true feeling of the stone and may thus be one of the very few impressions in existence printed directly from the stone on which Renoir worked directly with brush and chalk.

A proof such as this is of the very greatest rarity.