Auguste Renoir - Madame Leon Clapisson. Marie Henriette Valentine Billet 1883

Auguste Renoir - Madame Leon Clapisson.
Marie Henriette Valentine Billet 1883

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From Art Institute of Chicago:
This canvas is Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s second attempt to fulfill a commission from the stockbroker Léon Clapisson, a new collector of Impressionism, to paint his wife, Valentine. Initially, the artist decided to paint Madame Clapisson outdoors, taking tea in a rose garden, but neither Renoir nor Clapisson was satisfied with the result. In this second portrait, the sitter appears indoors in an evening dress, set against an abstract background that picks up the reds from her chair, blues from her dress, and yellows from her gloves.
— Permanent collection label

In 1886,Van Gogh writes to a friend: ‘I have made a series of colour studies
in painting simply flowers (…) seeking oppositions of blue with orange, red
and green, yellow and violet, seeking the broken and neutral tones to
harmonise brutal extremes. Trying to render intense colour and not a grey
harmony’. - art-vanGogh.com

In his book Noa Noa Gauguin describes his experience of Tahiti and its inhabitants
on his arrival in 1891. He describes the woman in the portrait thus: 'She was not
pretty – at least not by European standards – but beautiful.' Disillusioned with
Europe and the Western art scene Gauguin took his leave and went in search
of a new beginning in the Pacific Islands. - art-Gauguin.com

art-Renoir.com

Auguste Renoir 1841-1919