Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919)
Claude Monet lisant (Claude Monet reading)
c.1873
Oil on canvas, 61.7 x 50 cm
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Companion:
Renoir, Auguste (1841-1919)
Camille Monet
c.1873
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Compare:
Renoir, Auguste (1841-1919)
Claude Monet, Le Liseur
1872
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Pierre Auguste Renoir is certainly the artist who most often portrayed Claude Monet and his wife Camille Doncieux. The ten or so paintings he dedicated to them date from their years of companionship and Renoir’s stays in Argenteuil where his friends lived from 1871 to 1877. The two paintings in the Musée Marmottan Monet are among the oldest effigies and are usually dated around 1873. Depicted as busts, the models stand out against neutral backgrounds and adopt elaborate poses. Monet, his face in profile and his body in three-quarters, is leaning on a chair whose openwork back can be seen at the bottom left; he is reading the newspaper L’Événement while smoking a pipe. Camille, who reveals a smiling face, is wearing elegant city clothes and appears to be turning towards her husband. Although designed independently of each other, these canvases, of the same dimensions and with the models facing each other, seem to go together. They were also brought together in a single frame for a time, thereby reinforcing the effect of pendants. Given to Monet by Renoir, these paintings are both “family portraits” and an important milestone in the genesis of the Impressionist collection that the master of Giverny would assemble. (Marmottan)
See also:
• Monet, Claude (1840-1926)