Portrait de Renoir, Version No. 4 by Jean Louis Forain, 1852-1931

Jean Louis Forain, 1852-1931
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Portrait de Renoir, Version No. 4

Original lithograph in black ink. 1905. Signed and dated in the stone. One of a few proofs only. No edition printed. Commissioned by Ambroise Vollard as part of a proposed album of lithographs by Forain but never issued. Rare.
Ref: Guerin - Forain Lithographe no 79. Johnson - Vollard Editeur no 53

Extremely fine tonal impression. On light cream chine volant paper. Generally excellent condition, especially for this type of paper; the usual few fibres typical of this paper and the slightest sign of creasing at the extreme left sheet edge. Full sheet as printed. Sheet: 12 1/2 x 10 3/8ins. Image (stone): 11 5/8 x 9 1/2ins (295x242mm).

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Drawing was the key quality in Forain?s art. He was draughtsman through and through, and he linked to this a brilliant eye for social situation or character. Portrait studies as such are uncommon in his oeuvre, but this sketch in lithography of Renoir in 1903 shows the marvellous quality of his drawing. The rapid line, the instinctive variations in shading, the sense of form and pose, all come together to show lithographic drawing at its best.

As the critic Huysmans wrote on the occasion of the exhibition of the ?Independants? in 1880: ?Mon. Forain studied with Manet and Degas but that is not to say that he takes ideas from them or copies them, for he has a very personal temperament, a very special vision.? Forain was essentially a part of the Impressionist circle but whilst his themes are very much those of a ?modern realism? his concentration was on the character of his subjects rather than on the ?sensation? of the moment. He worked on prints throughout his life; his earliest etchings date from around 1879 and his first lithographs from 1892. Many of his lithographs, like this study of Renoir, were never issued by him in editions and the only examples that exist are those published by Vollard for him around 1910.