Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Ambroise Vollard, Paris (acquired directly from the artist in 1907)
Lansborough Ltd, London
Collection of Lady Olive Baillie, London and Leeds Castle
Estate of Lady Olive Baillie
Sale: Sotheby’s London, 4 December 1974, lot 156 (consigned by the above)
Private collection, USA (purchased from the above sale)

A. Vollard, Tableaux, Pastels et Dessins de Pierre-Auguste Renoir, vol. II, Paris, 1918, p. 29 (illustrated)
A. Vollard, Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Paintings, Pastels and Drawings, San Francisco, 1989, p. 197, no. 808 (illustrated)

This work will be included in the forthcoming Pierre-Auguste Renoir Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.

Young women sporting hats is one of the prime subjects in Renoir’s oeuvre. The present work is one of the most resplendent examples of this subject, depicting the gorgeous young woman in a magnificent, plumed bonnet. Amelie Dieterle (1871-1941) was a prominent actress and singer who frequented Parisian avant-garde literary and artistic circles. Stephane Mallarme wrote poems celebrating her beauty and she was also used as a model by Toulouse-Lautrec, and she was an icon of the Belle Epoque in France. The present work relates closely to the famous lithograph of the same subject that was published by Julius Meier-Graefe in 1899. There survives photographs of Amelie Dieterle wearing a similar hat to that seen in the present work.

The present work has a distinguished provenance, with prior owners including the great art dealer Ambroise Vollard and Lady Olive Baillie. Whilst this work was kept in private collections during the past half century, other drawings and pastels treating the subject of women wearing hats have appeared on the market in recent years.