Renoir: The Pastel Counterproofs

Pierre-Auguste Renoir is the Impressionist artist most indelibly associated with an idyllic vision of modern life, captured in paintings of charming young girls, bohemian outings, round-cheeked children, and voluptuous bathers, all presented with breathtaking spontaneity. While his principal medium was oil painting, he produced exquisite pastels and watercolours in which his deft touch and supple colourings were especially effective. Renoir's pastel counterproofs, never-before exhibited or published, range across the spectrum of his subjects, from the mid-1870s to the second decade of the twentieth century. There are compositions related to one of his most famous paintings, the Moulin de la Galette, and a few are also clearly related to the artist's most famous colour lithographs. The counterproofs, reverse impressions taken from a pastel or drawing, were done in association with his dealer Ambroise Vollard, who stored them in a portfolio, where they remained unseen for nearly a century. This cat