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A young nude woman sits on drapery folded over her lap in a landscape of rocks in a stream.　

A woman rests her fair-skinned face on her hand with elbows bent on her knees in front of her chest. Her delicate fingers frame her face. Her long wavey light brown hair extends down her back, she wears two thin gold bracelets on left wrist. With a placid look on her face, she looks to the right beyond the viewer. Her bare feet peak out below the drapery on her lap and knees. The rocks and water are painted in energetic pastel-colored strokes. There are many strokes of subtle color in her flesh, drapery, and water and rocks behind.

Gallery Text

Following a trip to Italy in 1881–82 to study the masterpieces of ancient Roman and Renaissance painting, Renoir embarked on one of his most innovative periods. As he later recalled, “Around 1883 there occurred what seemed to be a break in my work. I had wrung impressionism dry.” Exploring the canonical theme of female nude bathers, Renoir titled a work similar to this one Naiad, or water nymph, highlighting the figure’s classical inspiration. Her pose recalls a well-known Roman sculpture of a bathing nymph; it also evokes a long tradition in painting of depicting nude figures in a landscape. While this work responds to these precedents, it also breaks with them. Renoir painted the figure and her drapery differently from the landscape, so that she appears to float in the setting. He also left her right foot unresolved where it meets the fabric, signaling that his pictorial approach was no longer a purely naturalistic enterprise.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1951.59
People
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French (Limoges 1841 - 1919 Cagnes)
Title
Seated Bather
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Baigneuse Assise
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1883-1884
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/228651

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1220, European Art, 19th–20th century, Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
119.7 x 93 cm (47 1/8 x 36 5/8 in.)
framed: 143.2 x 116.7 x 12 cm (56 3/8 x 45 15/16 x 4 3/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.l.: Renoir
  • inscription: verso, upper right of stretcher, in blue ink: 47088F
  • inscription: verso of frame, upper right, in black marker: 13 [encircled]
  • label: red bordered, handwritten, black ink, now removed from verso: Renoir / 9574
  • label: blue decorative border, faded black ink, now removed from verso: 1101
  • label: handwritten, black ink, now removed from verso: Renoir 13496 / Baigneuse assise / 1885.
  • label: handwritten, graphite, now removed from verso: Balsan / 2 rue de General / Vanderbilt / [illegible text]
  • label: serrated edges, handwrittenn, black ink, now removed from verso: [illegible text]
  • label: round, serrated edges, green ink, now removed from verso: [illegible text]
  • label: round, red border, handwritten, black ink, now removed from verso: D842
  • label: verso of frame, blue and white printed: W. S. BUDWORTH & SON / PACKERS & SHIPPERS OF WORKS OF ART / 424 West 52nd St., New York, N. Y. / TITLE / ARTIST / ADDRESS [handwritten, blue crayon:] #1 [obscured by secondary label on top] [secondary label, blue with black printed text:] N.Y.C., N.Y. / 28 / [cutoff text]
  • inscription: red ink, now removed from verso: 47088

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1884-1886, sold; [to Durand-Ruel, Paris] (deposited 1886, sold to Durand-Ruel in 1886) sold; to Mrs. Berthe Honore Potter Palmer, (1892-1894) sold; [to Durand-Ruel, New York] (1894-1930) sold; to Mrs. Jacques (Consuelo Vanderbilt) Balsan (1930-1946) sold; [through Durand-Ruel, New York]; to Maurice Wertheim (1946-1951) bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1951.



Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
Accession Year
1951
Object Number
1951.59
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK HAS SIGNIFICANT LOAN RESTRICTIONS BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • Impressionist Paintings, exh. cat., St. Botolph Club (Boston, MA, 1913), no. 252
  • Gustave Geffroy, "Renoir, Peintre de la Femme", L'Art et les Artistes (April 1920), repr., p. 157
  • Georges Riviere, Renoir et ses Amis, Henri Floury (Paris, France, 1921), repr. opposite p. 40
  • Henri de Regnier, Renoir, peintre du nu, Galerie Bernheim Jeune (Paris, France, 1923), repr., pl. 17
  • Gustave Coquiot, Renoir, avec 32 reproductions, A. Michel (Paris, France, 1925), repr. opposite p. 40
  • Loan Exhibition of Old and Modern Masters, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI, 1927), no. 91
  • Albert Andre, Renoir, G. Crès et Cie (Paris, France, 1928), repr. as pl. 30
  • Georges Besson, Auguste Renoir, G. Crès et Cie (Paris, France, 1929), pl. 16
  • Julius Meier-Graefe, Renoir, Klinkhardt & Biermann (Leipzig, Germany, 1929), no. 179
  • Claire Batigne, Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts (London, 1932), no. 544
  • Illustrated Souvenir of the Exhibition of French Art, exh. cat., Burlington House (London, England, 1932), repr. p. 68
  • Claire Batigne, The London Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, exh. cat., Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (New York, NY, 1932), repr.
  • Renoir, 1841-1919, exh. cat., Musée de l'Orangerie (Paris, France, 1933), no. 78, plate XLIV
  • L'Impressionisme, exh. cat., Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (Brussels, Belgium, 1935), no. 64
  • A. C. Barnes and Violette de Mazia, The Art of Renoir (New York, NY, 1935), pp. 408-409, no. 142
  • Claude Roger-Marx, Renoir, Henri Floury (Paris, France, 1937), repr. p. 105
  • "Renoir Painting Sold, Proceeds to Aid France", New York Herald Tribune (Nov 21 1946), p. 48
  • Durand-Ruel Gallery, Nine Selected Paintings by Renoir, exh. cat., Durand-Ruel Gallery (New York, NY, 1946), repr. no. 1
  • La Peinture Française Depuis 1870: Collection Maurice Wertheim, exh. cat., Tom Taylor (Québec, Canada, 1949), no. 10, pp. 27-29
  • Howard Devree, "By French Masters: The Metropolitan Shows Wertheim Collection", The New York Times (New York, NY, July 6 1952), p. 6, p. 6
  • "Youths Caught Stealing Famous Paintings in Paris", The New York Times (New York, NY, June 28, 1952), repr.
  • Figure Paintings by Renoir, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY, 1952), repr.
  • The Maurice Wertheim Catalogue: Modern French Art-- Monet to Picasso, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC, 1960), p. 42, repr. p. 43
  • Masterpieces: loan exhibition of paintings and drawings. A memorial exhibition for Adele R. Levy; benefit of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, Inc., exh. cat., Wildenstein Gallery, New York (New York, NY, 1961), repr. no. 41
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 1962), p. 44, pl. 17
  • Margarethe B. J. Brown, "Modern Woman--In Whose Image?", Crossroads (July 1965 - Sept 1965), vol. XV, no. 4, ill. p. 89
  • Renoir, University of Wisconsin Press (Tokyo, Japan, 1969), repr. in color p. 35
  • James Nelson, "Impressionism Ridiculed by 19th Century Critics", The Montgomery Advertiser Journal (Montgomery, AL, June 6, 1971)
  • François Daulte, Auguste Renoir: catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Editions Durand-Ruel (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1971), vol. 1, no. 490, repr.
  • Elda Fezzi, L'Opera Completa di Renoir nel periodo impressionista, 1869-1883, Rizzoli Editore (Milan, Italy, 1972), no. 620
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Maine State Museum (Augusta, ME, 1972), no. 30
  • Jean Sutherland Boggs, "Variations on the Nude", Apollo (June 1978), vol. CVII, no. 196, pp. 487-489, p. 489, repr. as color pl. XIX
  • Vivien Raynor, "Art: Impressionist Show at the I.B.M. Gallery" [review], The New York Times (New York, NY, April 26, 1985), p. C24
  • G. Freisinger, "Second Impressions", Harvard Magazine (Cambridge, MA, May 1985 - June 1985), p. 40, ill. p. 43
  • Renoir, exh. cat., Arts Council of Great Britain, London (London, England, 1985), pp. 110-111, repr., 221, 239-240
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 215, p. 189, repr. in b/w
  • Bruce Bernard, ed., The Impressionist Revolution, Orbis Publishing Ltd. (London, England, 1986), repr. in coor, p. 185
  • Horst Keller, Auguste Renoir, Bruckmann Verlag (Munich, Germany, 1987), repr. in color pl. 100, p. 125
  • Nicholas Wadley, ed., Renoir: A Retrospective, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. (New York, NY, 1987), repr. in color pl 89, p. 269
  • John O'Brian, Degas to Matisse: the Maurice Wertheim Collection, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and Fogg Art Museum (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, 1988), no. 8, pp. 57-60, repr. in color p. 58
  • John House, Renoir, exh. cat., Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery (Guernsey, 1988), repr. in b/w p. 34
  • Raffaele de Grada, Renoir, Arch Cape Press (New York, NY, 1989), repr. in color no. 56, p. 79
  • Christopher Riopelle, "Renoir: the Great Bathers", Bulletin of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA, Fall 1990), vol. 86, no. 367-368, repr. in color fig. 5, p. 13; text p. 12
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 87, color plate; pp. 127, 254, repr. b/w cat. no. 382
  • Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Renoir by Renoir, ed. Rachel Barnes, Webb and Bower (Exeter, England, 1990), repr. in color p. 57
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1990), repr. in color, no. 17, p. 65
  • Bernard Denvir, Impressionism, the Painters and the Paintings, Studio Editions (London, England, 1991), repr. in color pl. 197
  • Anne Higonnet, Berthe Morisot's Images of Women, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA and London, England, 1992.), repr. in b/w, fig. 67, p. 171
  • Rosamond Lehmann, A Sea-Grape Tree (London, England, 1993), detail repr. in color on cover
  • Vivien Perutz, Edouard Manet, Bucknell University Press /Associated University Presses (Lewiston, PA and London, England, 1993), repr. in b/w fig. 4, p. 63; text p. 63
  • Anne Distel, Renoir il faut embellir, Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Editions Gallimard (Paris, France, 1993), repr. in color p. 83
  • John House, Renoir: Master Impressionist, exh. cat., Art Exhibitions Australia Limited (Sydney, Australia, 1994), fig. 22, pp. 48-49
  • Impressionist and Modern Art, Part I, auct. cat., Sotheby's (New York, NY, November 13, 1997), p. 70
  • Impressionist and Modern Art, Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg (New York, NY, May 7 2001), p. 66, under lot no. 16, repr. in b/w as fig. 3, p. 67
  • Gilles Néret, Renoir: Painter of Happiness, Taschen (Köln, Germany, 2001), repr. in color, p. 298
  • John House, Impressionism: Paint and Politics, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT, and London, 2004), p. 203, repr. as pl. 176
  • John House, "Women Out of Doors", exh. cat., ed. Sidsel Maria Søndergaard, Skira (Milan, Italy, 2006), p. 184, repr. in color as fig. 154
  • Elizabeth M. Rudy, "Researching the Wertheim Collection at the Harvard Art Museums", Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals (Summer 2014), Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 301-6
  • Roberta Smith, "[Review] A New Look At Renoir, and Another O'Keeffe", The New York Times (New York, August 9, 2019), p. C15, p. C15, repr.
  • Esther Bell and George T.M. Shackelford, ed., Renoir: The Body, The Senses, exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Kimbell Art Museum, and Yale University Press (Williamstown, 2019), pp. 4, 43, 273, cat. no. 22, repr. p. 4
  • Alexander Eiling, Juliane Betz, and Fabienne Ruppen, Renoir: Rococo Revival, exh. cat., Städel Museum and Hatje Cantz (Frankfurt, 2022), pp. 141-143, repr. p. 141 as fig. 7

Exhibition History

  • Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 01/01/1932 - 03/05/1932
  • Renoir, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 01/01/1933 - 12/31/1933
  • Nine Selected Paintings by Renoir, Durand-Ruel [New York], New York, 12/01/1946 - 01/31/1947
  • La Peinture Française depuis 1870, Musée de la Province de Quebec, 07/12/1949 - 08/07/1949
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 07/01/1952 - 09/14/1952
  • French Paintings Since 1870 from the Maurice Wertheim Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 06/01/1953 - 09/30/1953
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 06/15/1957 - 09/15/1957
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 06/10/1958 - 08/31/1958
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Modern French Art--Monet to Picasso, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 06/17/1960 - 09/04/1960
  • Masterpieces: A Memorial Exhibition for Adele R. Levy, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 04/06/1961 - 05/07/1961
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 06/13/1962 - 09/02/1962
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 06/20/1963 - 09/01/1963
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, 06/24/1965 - 09/07/1965
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 09/03/1968 - 09/22/1968
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, 06/01/1971 - 09/30/1971
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Maine State Museum, Augusta, 06/01/1972 - 09/01/1972
  • Renoir, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 10/09/1985 - 01/05/1986
  • Manet to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, 04/09/1985 - 05/25/1985
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, 03/01/1990 - 04/10/1990; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 04/14/1990 - 05/13/1990
  • Renoir: the Great Bathers, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 09/09/1990 - 11/25/1990
  • Re-View: S427 Impressionist & Postimpressionist Art, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/02/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • 32Q: 1220 Wertheim, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 05/31/2019; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/29/2019 - 01/01/2050
  • Renoir: The Body, The Senses, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, 06/08/2019 - 09/22/2019

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu