(Limoges 1841–1919 Cagnes near Nice)
Paysage avec fond de mer, stamped signature: Renoir, oil on canvas, 22.5 x 38.2 cm, framed, (PP)

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 (letter from the Wildenstein Institute, Paris, 27 February 2006, available)

Provenance:
Private Collection, Switzerland – acquired in Paris
Galerie Toni Aktuaryus, Zurich
Collection Felix-Louis Calonder (federal councillor 1913–1920), by 1944 Kunsthandlung R. Aeschbach, Zurich
Private Collection, Switzerland
Galerie Koller, Zurich, 23 June 2006, lot 3163
acquired directly from the above by the present owner –
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Wuppertal, Renoir und die Landschaft des Impressionismus, Von der Heydt Museum, 28 October 2007–27 January 2008, cat. exh. p. 182, ill.

The beauty of the late paintings is based on the rapture of colours, which is strewn across the canvas with loose brushwork and in an open, curvy, moving composition, often just like the fluffy dust on butterfly wings. The bright light of Provence flows through his landscapes and allows the colours to blossom in fantastic fullness […]. For Renoir, everything became a fairy garden veiled by serene harmonies in red, yellow, green and blue or a fabric of dazzling, decorative splendour.
(Peter H. Feist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841–1919. Ein Traum von Harmonie, Taschen, Cologne 2006, p. 81)