Gazette Drouot logo print
Lot n° 30

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Coco mangeant sa soupe Oil...

Estimate :
500 000 - 600 000 EUR

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Coco mangeant sa soupe Oil on canvas. 46.3 x 37.9 cm. Framed. Signed 'Renoir' in brown lower right. - In fine condition, with vibrant colours. The edges are reinforced all round with paper tape. Dauberville 3415 Provenance Ambroise Vollard, Paris; Private collection, Zürich (about 1930); Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego (March 1942, on loan from a Private Collection); Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, Los Angeles (1943-1949); Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries, New York (1953, label verso); 1953 bought by Chapin und Mary Alexander Riley, Malibu/Worcester; 1991 as 1/3 fractional gift of painting to the Worcester Art Museum (no. 1991.238); 1997 as 2/3 fractional gift of painting to the Worcester Art Museum, MA Exhibitions Amsterdam 1930 (Stedelijk Museum), Vincent van Gogh en zijn Tijdgenooten, cat. no. 269 (label verso); San Diego 1942 (Fine Arts Gallery); Los Angeles 1943 (Dalzell Hatfield Galleries), Renoir (1841-1919), cat. no. 5; Los Angeles/New York 1949 (Dalzell Hatfield Galleries/Barbizon Plaza Hotel), A Superb Exhibition. Modern French Masters, p. 5 (label verso); Madrid/Bilbao 2016/2017 (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza/Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao), Renoir: Intimidad, p. 149 Literature Principales acquisitions des musées en 1992, in: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1993, p. 65 Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s artistic greatness can also be seen in his portraits of children. Whether painting or drawing, he captures their fresh complexion, their often plump bodies and their sometimes still-clumsy movements. With no other subject matter does Renoir develop such a genuine joy in depicting a particular form of play and cheerful togetherness. The painting “Coco mangeant sa soupe” shows Renoir’s third and youngest son Claude, who was born in 1901. The portrait records him sitting at the table as he eats soup with the spoon in his right hand. He has painted the head of the four-year-old child in nuanced shades of orange, red, pink and beige applied in veritably “tender” brushstrokes. He has also selected red and a tinted white for the upper body, resulting in a range of colours that is warm overall and additionally conveys the father’s bond with his son. It is less the child’s individuality than his delicate and lively appearance that has drawn the painter’s attention. “Coco mangeant sa soupe” is realised in that soft, flowing manner of painting to which Renoir had turned since the mid-1890s and which makes his paintings so unmistakably unique. When he completed this painting, the artist was primarily staying in his house in Cagnes-sur-Mer due to his rheumatoid arthritis. But Renoir also experienced major successes around 1905: not only did the Galerie Durand-Ruel show two extensive exhibitions in Paris – Paul Cassirer also presented his works in Berlin, and three of them were immediately purchased for the Nationalgalerie.

Friday 05 June 2026 - 18:00 - Live
Neumarkt, 3 - 50667 Cologne, Allemagne