Brief Report

Renoir painted the portrait of his son Jean in about 1900 [Reuber 2007]. According to the sitter himself, who vividly recalled the tedious sittings for this portrait [Renoir 1962, pp. 351f], the painting, in the standard F10 format, shows him sewing a costume for his beloved cuddly camel. The canvas evinces a lively structure and has a commercially applied twolayer yellowish-white ground (figs 3, 8). The painting is characterized by a number of mostly translucent and very thin applications, typical of Renoir's technique at this time (fig. 10,11). The paint was mostly applied wet-in-wet, but also wet on dry. A remarkable feature is the number of times the artist revised his work in the search for perfection: some of these revisions can even be seen with the naked eye in the form of numerous pentimenti, for example changes in the shape of the sleeve, bow and hair (fig. 13). Microscopic examination also reveals however that large areas of the first paint applications were removed by scraping away paint that was already dry before new paint was applied (fig. 12). This procedure was already noted by Burnstock as an occasional element of Renoir's working method [Burnstock et al. 2005, p. 61]. There is no autograph signature, reflecting Renoir's signing habits at the time, for by his own account he often did not sign works that remained in his house or studio [Ehrlich-White 1984, p. 222]. The signature stamps recto and verso can be assigned a terminus post quem of 1927 [see "Signature" below] and were probably applied only when the painting left the possession of the family at some time after 1931, in other words some years after Renoir's death (fig. 7). However neither Jean Renoir himself, nor any other publication, mentions that he was painted twice by his father in this pose. The collection of the Art Institute Chicago has a painting which is virtually identical in size and motif (fig. 14) [Druick 1997, p. 69]. The two works have often been confused in the literature hitherto. The similarity of the two pictures is striking, not only in respect of the depiction, but also of the choice of materials and the painterly process: the Chicago version was apparently painted on pre-primed canvas cut from the same length of material, as the structural identity of the fabric, revealed by X-ray, shows (figs 6, 15). Here too, not only pentimenti but also an obviously mechanical reduction of the paint layers reveal an intensive confrontation with the depiction of his son [Chicago Art Institute 2008]. For this reason it may be presumed that the two pictures were painted within a short time of each other; however it is not clear in which order they were painted, or indeed why there are two versions. Possibly Renoir worked on both in parallel. Unlike the Cologne picture, the one in Chicago bears Renoir's autograph signature, doubtless because it was sold during his lifetime. By 1914 it was already in the possession of the art dealer Durand-Ruel.

Auguste Renoir
Jean Renoir sewing, 1900, Oil on canvas, 55.5 x 46.4 cm, WRM Dep. FC 680

Auguste Renoir

born on 25 February 1841 in Limoges,
died on 3 December 1919 in Cagnes

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

Transmitted light


Fig. 05

UV fluorescence


Fig. 06

X-ray


Fig. 07

Signature stamps; details of the stamp recto in incident light (top) and under UV fluorescence (middle), and of the stamp verso (bottom), microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 08

Edge of the ground on the pre-primed canvas, two-layer application, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 09

Detail, flesh tints


Fig. 10

Translucent paint application in the area of the dress, with formation of aureoles as a result of extreme dilution, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 11

Detail, artist's revision of the sleeve


Fig. 12

Detail of right sleeve, artist's own overpainting of an area from which layers of paint had previously been removed, particularly evident under the microscope in raking light (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 13

Artist's revisions: mapping of changes in compositional details


Fig. 14

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir Sewing, 1900, oil on canvas, 55.4 cm x 46.5 cm, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson
Collecton, 1937.1027, The Art Institute of Chicago, Abbildung © The Art Institute of Chicago


Fig. 15

X-ray (composite) of the picture illustrated in fig. 14, illustration © The Art Institute of Chicago