art-Renoir.com
Auguste Renoir 1841-1919
Auguste Renoir - Lise with umbrella 1867
 Lise with umbrella |
From Museum Folkwang Essen:
This first masterpiece by the young Renoir is distinguished by its natural combination of an impression of a landscape – a clearing in the forest of Fontainebleau – with a portrait. The figure depicted in Lise Tréhot (1848-1922) who Renoir met through his friend Jules Le Coeur in 1865 and who was his preferred model until 1872. The painter presents his young love as a fashionably dressed Parisian against shaded trees. Her dress of white mousseline corresponds to the dress code of the day for a summer day in the outdoors: high-necked and with long arms, the dress offered protection from the sun and also indicated morality. Renoir also carefully reproduces the refined details of her clothing, the black ribbons on the neckline and sleeves, the small straw hat crowned with tulle and red ribbons, whose color corresponds to the decorative drop earrings, and the parasol of ivory, black lace and white lining. As proof of his love, the painter placed his initials in a massive trunk on the background. The painting, dated 1867, was soon seen as a major work of early Impressionism, although its style is still close to Realism or Pleinairism. Emil Zola and Zacharie Astruc, in their critiques of the Paris Salon of 1868, drew parallels with Manet’s ‘Olympia’ and Monet’s ‘Camille’. With the purchase of this painting, very important for the Folkwang, in the Berlin gallery of the Berlin art dealer Paul Cassirer, Karl Ernst Osthaus established his name as a collector. “Who’s the buyer, And where is Hagen?” Max Liebermann, who would have liked to acquire the painting for his own collection of French art, is said to have asked.