Cat. 18. Woman Seated in a Chair (recto); Woman Seated in a Chair, Seen from the Back (verso), c. 1883

Cat. 18  Woman Seated in a Chair (recto); Woman Seated in a Chair, Seen from the Back (verso), c. 1883

Cat. 18

Woman Seated in a Chair (recto); Woman Seated in a Chair, Seen from the Back (verso)1
c. 1883
Charcoal, with graphite and touches of stumping and erasure (recto), and graphite (verso) on ivory wove paper; 362 × 310 mm
Stamp: Renoir. (lower right, in brown-black ink)
The Art Institute of Chicago, Samuel P. Avery Fund, 1943.520R, 1943.520V

Executed quickly—as the energetic shading and loose lines suggest—this study exudes casualness. Seated cross-legged in a rocking chair, the model turns her head toward the viewer, her nonchalant gaze cast down. The description of her features is cursory, their reiterated contours inexact despite the use of pencil around the eye sockets, lids, and collar. The treatment of the woman’s body, meanwhile, is spare. Drawn in charcoal, its profile is distinct, but the modeling of the dress is minimal. The sitter’s right arm, bent at the elbow to rest across her stomach, fades into the barest suggestion of a hand. The soft, remaining marks give the impression that the medium was somehow transferred onto the page rather than applied directly. Aside from an area of shading to the right of the woman's face, and a few strokes that extend parallel to the nape of her neck, the background is empty, providing little sense of context.

The model is dressed in contemporary clothing, which indicates that the work was produced before Renoir changed his style—and, to a degree, his values—in the mid-1880s. One of the first pictures he had shown with the Impressionist group in 1874, The Parisienne (fig. 18.1 [Daulte 102; Dauberville 299]), delights in the sitter’s elaborate costume, and he produced several other images of modern women in the following years.2 Although the clothes are not described in detail in the present image, they do place the sitter in a metropolitan environment. From the middle of the decade onward, Renoir tended to avoid details that were specifically contemporary, possibly in reaction to female emancipation.3

The artist seems to have taken as much pleasure in describing the chair as he did its occupant. Arabesques form its sides, curling up at either end in satisfying curves. A searching line on the level of the rockers suggests a shadow below, conveying a sense of movement, as if prompted by the blurred (and so presumably agitated) feet.

Technical examination of the sheet by Art Institute paper conservator Kimberly Nichols revealed another Renoir drawing on its verso (see Technical Report). Akin to the Buste de danseuse of around 1883–85 (fig. 18.2 [Dauberville 1446]), this second image shows the torso of a seated female figure, seen from behind, in a state of partial undress (fig. 18.3), quite unlike the Woman Seated in a Chair.4 Renoir seems to have drawn the model’s profil perdu with a single gesture, and the twisted knot of her hair and gentle slope of the shoulders are described in clear, delicate lines. This image may relate to the series of bather drawings that the artist made in the mid-1880s, but, despite its visual appeal, he did not complete the work.5 Perhaps the suggestion of clothing tied the figure too closely to contemporary life at a moment when Renoir more often sought to create figures that harked back to antiquity.
Nancy Ireson

Technical Report

Technical Summary

Renoir executed Woman Seated in a Chair primarily in charcoal on ivory, moderately thick, slightly textured [glossary:wove] paper. Soft charcoal lines and broad areas of shading loosely define the figure’s body and the rocking chair. The slight texture of the paper surface is revealed in the broadly drawn passages. The figure’s hair is the most modeled part of the composition; here Renoir used both charcoal and [glossary:graphite] with touches of [glossary:stumping] or erasure to achieve further tonal variation (fig. 18.4). In contrast, the figure’s face and neck sash are carefully defined with hard graphite lines. Erasure may also have been used to further emphasize the placement of the figure’s hands in her lap. The seated woman fills the center area of the paper support, and there is little development of the background: only a faint shaded area to the right of the face and a straight horizontal line across the lower area of the sheet suggest a sense of space.

On the verso, a faint unfinished graphite sketch depicts the upper half of a woman, viewed from behind, with her hair in a bun and a towel or shawl draped loosely around her back (fig. 18.5).6 The image is most clearly seen with the aid of [glossary:infrared reflectography] (fig. 18.6).

Signature

Stamp: Renoir. (lower right, in brown-black ink) (fig. 18.7).

Media and Support

Support Characteristics

Primary paper type

Ivory, moderately thick, slightly textured wove paper.7

Watermark

J. Whatman, Turkey Mill, 1881 (complete, horizontal orientation across top of sheet) (fig. 18.8).

Furnish

Uniform, without visible inclusions or colored fibers.

Formation

Even.

Other characteristics

A deckle edge is preserved along the top of the sheet. The side edges appear to be edge-torn, exhibiting slight irregularities, and the bottom edge is trimmed straight.

Dimensions

362 × 310 mm.

Preparatory Layers

No artistic surface alterations or coatings are visible in normal conditions or under magnification. Under [glossary:UV] illumination, there is a pale-yellow visible-light [glossary:fluorescence] that is characteristic of a light gelatin [glossary:sizing].

Media Characteristics

The work is drawn in charcoal, with selective use of graphite to define the upper portion of the figure, including the hair, face, and clothing around the neck. There appear to be touches of stumping or erasure, which create tonal variation in the figure’s hair. Erasure may also have been used to selectively highlight the figure’s hands, crossed in her lap.

On the verso, a faint graphite drawing depicts the upper half of a woman, viewed from behind, with her hair in a bun and a towel or shawl draped loosely around her back.

Compositional Development

No revisions or changes are visible in the composition in normal conditions or under magnification.

Surface Treatment

No artistic surface alterations or coatings are visible in normal conditions, under UV illumination, or under magnification.

Condition History

The drawing [glossary:support] exhibits soft undulations around the perimeter of the sheet. There is small tear at the center top edge. Traces of adhesive residue and staining are faintly visible along the left edge. The charcoal medium appears sunk in and lightly smudged in some areas. The verso of the drawing exhibits small thinned areas, most concentrated on the lower right, and small spots of brown material that suggest former removal of the drawing from a mount.

Under UV illumination, the drawing support reveals several large, irregularly ringed areas of bright-yellow visible-light fluorescence adjacent to slightly UV-absorbing areas in the upper third of the drawing support. It is likely that these areas correspond to former contact with moisture or liquid that caused movement of components in the paper, including the gelatin sizing. It is likely that staining developed in these areas but was formerly reduced through conservation treatment; under normal conditions traces of the staining are currently visible only in the upper right area of the sheet.
Kimberly Nichols

Provenance

Estate of the artist, from 1919.8

Sold by the artist’s estate to André Schoeller: Paris.9

André Schoeller, probably to at least July 27, 1939.5

Sold by Justin K. Thannhauser, New York, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.

Exhibition History

Art Institute of Chicago, Drawings: Old and New, 1946, p. 22, cat. 44 (ill.).

Birmingham (Ala.) Museum of Art, Exhibition of French Drawings (Le Fin du Siècle), Oct. 5–Nov. 1, 1952, no cat.

Tokyo, National Art Center, Renoir: Tradition and Innovation, Jan. 20–Apr. 5, 2010, pp. 96–97 (ill.), cat. 31, 251 (ill.); Osaka, National Museum of Art, Apr. 17–June 27, 2010.

Selected References

John Rewald, Renoir Drawings (H. Bittner, 1946), p. 18, no. 26 (ill.).

Hans Tietze, European Master Drawings in the United States (J. J. Augustin, 1947), pp. 290–91, no. 145 (ill.).

Regina Shoolman and Charles E. Slatkin, Six Centuries of French Master Drawings in America (Oxford University Press, 1950), p. 202, no. 114 (ill.).

Ira Moskowitz, Great Drawings of All Time, vol. 3 (Shorewood, 1962), no. 801 (ill.).

Harold Joachim and Sandra Haller Olsen, French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the Nineteenth Century, vol. 2 (University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 91, no. 5D8.

Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vol. 2, 1882–1894 (Bernheim-Jeune, 2009), p. 476, cat. 1445 (ill.).

Other Documentation

Inscriptions and Distinguishing Marks

Recto

Framer’s mark
Location: bottom, right of center
Method: handwritten script, graphite
Content: [erased] vue 30 × 32 / [erased] verre 39 × 41 / no. 13[?] / [erased] 3 [?]

Examination Conditions and Technical Analysis

Raking Visible Light

Paper support characteristics identified.

Transmitted Infrared (Fuji 1.0–1.1 μm)

Watermark captured.

Transmitted Visible Light

Paper mold characteristics identified.

Ultraviolet-Induced Visible Fluorescence (365 nm)

Former staining detected.

Infrared Reflectography (Fujifilm S5 Pro with X-Nite 1000B/2 mm filter [1.0–1.1 µm])

Graphite drawing on verso captured (Nov. 14, 2011).

Stereomicroscopy (80–100×)

Media identified.

Image Inventory

The image inventory compiles records of all known images of the artwork on file in the Imaging Department and in the conservation and curatorial files in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago (fig. 18.9).

This figure is characteristic of Renoir’s bather studies, resembling the far right figure in the painting Bathers in the Forest (c. 1897; Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia [Dauberville 240]).Dauberville refers to the Renoir catalogue raisonné: Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vols. 1–5 (Bernheim-Jeune, 2007–14).

Page description of thickness and texture follow the standard set forth in Elizabeth Lunning and Roy Perkinson, The Print Council of America Paper Sample Book: A Practical Guide to the Description of Paper (Print Council of America/Sun Hill, 1996).

The model for this work was Henriette Henriot, a relatively unsuccessful vaudeville actress, who probably posed to supplement her income. Renoir depicted her on multiple occasions. Colin B. Bailey, Renoir, Impressionism and Full-Length Painting (Frick Collection,/Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 65–66. Daulte and Dauberville refer to the Renoir catalogues raisonnés: François Daulte, Auguste Renoir: Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint (Durand-Ruel, 1971); Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vols. 1–5 (Bernheim-Jeune, 2007–14).

John House, “Renoir’s Bathers of 1887 and the Politics of Escapism,” Burlington Magazine 134, 1074 (Sept. 1992), pp. 582–85.

Daulte and Dauberville refer to the Renoir catalogues raisonnés: François Daulte, Auguste Renoir: Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint (Durand-Ruel, 1971); Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vols. 1–5 (Bernheim-Jeune, 2007–14).

For more on the bather series, see Splashing Figure (Study for “The Large Bathers”) (cat. 19) and Study for “Bathers in the Forest” (cat. 23).

The artist’s estate stamp, recto, lower right, in brown-black ink: Renoir. Frits Lugt, Les marques de collections de dessins et d’estampes: Supplément (Martinus Nijhoff, 1956), pp. 315–16, no. 2137b.

Justin K. Thannhauser to Carl O. Schniewind, June 5, 1943, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago.

Dealer photograph dated July 27, 1939, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago.

Woman Seated in a Chair (recto) and Woman Seated in a Chair, Seen from the Back (verso) correspond to Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vol. 2, 1882–1894 (Bernheim-Jeune, 2009), p. 476, no. 1445 (ill.).