Young Woman at her Toilette

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French, 1841–1919
Date: c.1876
Material: Pastel
made in: France, Europe
Classification: Drawings & watercolors
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: image: 19 x 12 1/2 in. (48.3 x 31.8 cm)
sheet: 19 11/16 x 13 in. (50 x 33 cm)
framed: 30 1/8 x 23 1/2 x 2 3/4 in. (76.5 x 59.7 x 7 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of an anonymous donor
Rights: Public Domain
Object Number: 59:1988

NOTES

A young woman carefully pins back her long, dark hair, as she stands before a basin on a table. The scene takes place in an interior room, possibly a bath chamber. Pierre-Auguste Renoir and his Impressionist contemporaries were known for painting outdoors, but just as often they represented interior spaces. In fact, domestic interiors, especially more private locations like this, were considered quintessentially modern subjects in the late 1800s. Pictures such as this one anticipated later avant-garde depictions of intimate scenes, like the print by Pierre Bonnard in the adjacent gallery.

The Impressionist inclination for quick strokes and luminous color is apparent in Renoir’s use of pastel. He began exploring the medium in the 1870s as a way to experiment with brilliant light and saturated colors as in his oil paintings. Pastel drawings also allowed him to capture quick impressions of his models, retaining their lifelike character and vibrancy.

Provenance

1920
Galerie Durand-Ruel (Paul Durand-Ruel, 1831–1922), Paris, France [1]

Galerie L’Oeil (founded 1962), Paris, France [2]

G. Bernier, Paris, France [3]

- 1988
Private Collection [4]

1988 -
Saint Louis Art Museum, given anonymously by a private collector [5]

Notes:
[1] See the exhibition catalogue for [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Tableaux Pastels – Dessins par Renoir (1841–1919), November 29–December 18, 1920, no. 71, as “Femme à sa toilette (pastel)”].

[2] According to the accession record, this drawing was formerly in the collection of the Galerie L’Oeil, Paris. This information appears to have come from a phone call with the donor, per an undated handwritten note, where it is simply noted as “L’Oeil” [SLAM document files]. See note [3] regarding the identification of this gallery and its ownership.

[3] See note [2]. G. Bernier’s inclusion in this provenance comes from the same sources [SLAM document files]. This is likely to be Georges Bernier, who co-founded the monthly art magazine L’Oeil with Rosamond Bernier in 1955 and founded a gallery of the same name in 1962 [Hervé Gauville, “Georges Bernier had ‘the eye’,” Libération, December 18, 2001. https://www.liberation.fr/culture/2001/12/18/georges-bernier-avait-l-oeil_387665/].

[4] The donor of this drawing wishes to remain anonymous.

[5] Minutes of the Collections Committee of the Board of Trustees, Saint Louis Art Museum, September 7, 1988.

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