Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919)
La Grenouillère
1869
Oil on canvas, 66.5 x 81 cm
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
In the short story, Paul’s mistress, the French author Guy de Maupassant describes the floating café La Grenouillère in a Paris suburb: “In the environs a crowd of people were strolling… prostitutes with yellow hair and protruding breasts… plastered with rouge … rigged out in outrageous dresses … while beside them young dandies postured in the latest fashion. In the floating establishment, the uproarious crowd made a deafening noise.” (Nationalmuseum)
During the summer of 1869, Monet and Renoir set up their easels at La Grenouillère, a boating and bathing resort on the Seine River, not far from Paris. Monet noted on September 25, “I do have a dream, a painting, the baths of La Grenouillère, for which I have made some bad sketches, but it is only a dream. Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting.” (MET)
Compare:
Monet, Claude (1840-1926)
La Grenouillère
1869
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Monet, Claude (1840-1926)
La Grenouillère
1869
National Gallery, London
Renoir, Auguste (1841-1919)
La Grenouillère
1869
Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur
Renoir, Auguste (1841-1919)
La Grenouillère
1869
Pushkin Museum, Moscow