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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue critique of Pierre-Auguste Renoir being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute established from the archives of François Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and Wildenstein.
Painted circa 1879, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Le faisan is a stunning example of the artist’s keen skills of observation and mastery of paint, its elegant rendering of the beautiful form of a small pheasant caught in harsh snowy conditions a masterclass in brushwork, colour and texture. 1879 saw one of the coldest and most severe winters recorded in France during the Nineteenth Century, with temperatures reaching a low of minus 25 degrees Celsius in some areas. Snow started to fall in earnest towards the end of November, and continued for weeks on end, bringing transportation across the country almost to a halt, as the accumulated snow and ice rendered routes impassable. Perhaps most dramatic of all, the Seine froze over, a rare phenomenon that drew huge crowds to its banks to see the spectacle for themselves, garnering an enormous amount of attention in the press. In rendering the death of the pheasant, its colourful form perfectly preserved by the cold weather, Renoir captures a sense of the spectacular, but perilous, beauty that lay at the heart of this fairytale frozen world, its dazzling colours and glittering reflections at once captivating and dangerous.
One of the most striking elements of the composition is the array of jewel-like colours the artist employs, most noticeably in the rich, multi-hued plumage of the pheasant, where the artist’s palette ranges from the deep teal around its head and neck, to a subtle crimson on its breast, and the rich blues and oranges that dominate its wings and lower body. Each colour gradually merges with its surrounding shades, subtly shifting from one to the other in a delicate progression of pigment. Renoir conveys a sense of the soft, silky texture of the feathers, meanwhile, through a series of delicate, precise strokes, an effect which stands in stark contrast to the loose, thick, swift brushwork used to render the snowy background. While the artist no doubt spent many hours wandering through the snow-filled landscapes that surrounded his home during the winter of 1879, fascinated by the subtle nuances of colour that lay in the layers of snow and ice that enveloped the countryside, the harsh conditions must have made it almost impossible to paint en-plein-air. As such, the present composition was most likely executed in Renoir’s studio, with the artist drawing on his memories of the kaleidoscopic array of colour in the snow to reconstruct the scene.
Painted circa 1879, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Le faisan is a stunning example of the artist’s keen skills of observation and mastery of paint, its elegant rendering of the beautiful form of a small pheasant caught in harsh snowy conditions a masterclass in brushwork, colour and texture. 1879 saw one of the coldest and most severe winters recorded in France during the Nineteenth Century, with temperatures reaching a low of minus 25 degrees Celsius in some areas. Snow started to fall in earnest towards the end of November, and continued for weeks on end, bringing transportation across the country almost to a halt, as the accumulated snow and ice rendered routes impassable. Perhaps most dramatic of all, the Seine froze over, a rare phenomenon that drew huge crowds to its banks to see the spectacle for themselves, garnering an enormous amount of attention in the press. In rendering the death of the pheasant, its colourful form perfectly preserved by the cold weather, Renoir captures a sense of the spectacular, but perilous, beauty that lay at the heart of this fairytale frozen world, its dazzling colours and glittering reflections at once captivating and dangerous.
One of the most striking elements of the composition is the array of jewel-like colours the artist employs, most noticeably in the rich, multi-hued plumage of the pheasant, where the artist’s palette ranges from the deep teal around its head and neck, to a subtle crimson on its breast, and the rich blues and oranges that dominate its wings and lower body. Each colour gradually merges with its surrounding shades, subtly shifting from one to the other in a delicate progression of pigment. Renoir conveys a sense of the soft, silky texture of the feathers, meanwhile, through a series of delicate, precise strokes, an effect which stands in stark contrast to the loose, thick, swift brushwork used to render the snowy background. While the artist no doubt spent many hours wandering through the snow-filled landscapes that surrounded his home during the winter of 1879, fascinated by the subtle nuances of colour that lay in the layers of snow and ice that enveloped the countryside, the harsh conditions must have made it almost impossible to paint en-plein-air. As such, the present composition was most likely executed in Renoir’s studio, with the artist drawing on his memories of the kaleidoscopic array of colour in the snow to reconstruct the scene.