Portrait de Pierre Renoir - Fils de l'Artiste - de Face. Portrait of Pierre Renoir, The Artist's Son. by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919

Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919
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Portrait de Pierre Renoir - Fils de l'Artiste - de Face. Portrait of Pierre Renoir, The Artist's Son.

Original brush-drawn lithograph in brown/sepia ink. 1893. Signed in red chalk. Numbered in red chalk (79) from the edition of 100. Drawn at the studio of Auguste Clot, Paris 1893. Issued for the series:'L'Estampe Originale - The Original Print' by André Marty, Paris October 1893.
Note: Virtually the only print which Renoir hand signed.
Ref: Delteil-Stella: Renoir The Graphic Work no 27

Unusually fine and strong impression. On light pale cream chine volant paper. Exceptionally fine condition and with the signature unusually strong. With the blindstamp of L'Estampe Originale. Full margins. Sheet: 21 5/8 x 15 1/8ins. 550x385mm. Image overall (stone): 12 5/8 x 9
1/2ins. 320x240mm

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Renoir was inspired to some of his most beautiful and sensitive works in making studies of his children. Like the other impressionist painters he had striven to move away from the romantic or didactic imagery of the previous generation and to instill into his art a true sense of ?modern realism?. In very many ways the studies that he made of his family are the clearest and certainly the most moving expression of this realism. The sentiment and emotion that they express is not contrived or superimposed, it is inherent in the very relationship of artist and model.

This study is of Renoir?s son Pierre, dressed as was the custom of the period for children of that age, in very girlish clothes. In the pose and the modelling there is real feeling for the character of the child. At the same time the handling of the brush-drawn lines is used to express light and the modelling of surface through the contrasts of shading rather than through contour.

This lithograph is one of the only prints in Renoir?s print oeuvre to be hand signed. It was drawn for André Marty to be included in his ambitious series of prints ?L?Estampe Originale?. In common with the other works in this series Marty insisted that each impression should be numbered and signed. The edition was 100, rather less than for many of Renoir?s lithographs such as those drawn at Clot?s studio.

Fine examples of this lithograph have become very rare, not least because poor conservation in the past has lead to fading. This impression is particularly fresh. It comes from a German collection which was formed in the 1950-60?s and then stored in portfolios rather than being wall hung. It remained in those portfolios until 2003.