Renoir depicted the five-year-old daughter of his devoted patron Paul Berard, a French diplomat and banker whom he met in the winter of 1878. The artist often spent his summers at the Berards' country home in Wargemont, near Dieppe, on the Normandy coast, where he painted decorative pictures for the house and a veritable family album of portraits, which range from formal commissions to more intimate works that reflect a genuine fondness for the four Berard children. According to Margot's nephew, Renoir painted this spirited portrait of her to "cheer her up" after a disagreeable lesson with her German tutor that had brought her to tears.

Inscription: Signed and dated (upper left): Renoir 79.

Paul Berard, Paris and Wargemont, near Dieppe (from 1879); his daughter, the sitter, Mme Alfred (Marguerite) Berard, Paris (?sold to Knoedler); [Knoedler, Paris and New York, 1937; sold on January 25 to Clark]; Stephen C. Clark, New York (1937–d. 1960)

Paris. Durand-Ruel. "Exposition des oeuvres de P. A. Renoir," April 1–25, 1883, no. 19 [see Exh. Ottawa 1999].

Brussels. Les XX, Brussels. Palais des Beaux-Arts. "Troisième exposition annuelle des XX," February 6–March 7, 1886, no. 4 (as "Margot. Étude," lent by Paul Berard).

Paris. Bernheim-Jeune. "Exposition Renoir," March 10–29, 1913, no. 15 [see Ref. Daulte 1971].

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Renoir: A Special Exhibition of His Paintings," May 18–September 12, 1937, no. 26 (as "La petite Margot Bérard [sic]," lent by Stephen C. Clark).

New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Art in Our Time," May 10–September 30, 1939, no. 51 (lent by Stephen C. Clark).

New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Modern Masters from European and American Collections," January 26–March 24, 1940, no. 7 (lent by Stephen C. Clark, New York).

New York. World's Fair. "Masterpieces of Art: European & American Paintings, 1500–1900," May–October 1940, no. 333 (lent by Stephen C. Clark, New York).

New York. Duveen Galleries. "Renoir, Centennial Loan Exhibition, 1841-1941," November 8–December 6, 1941, no. 27 (lent by Mr. Stephen C. Clark, New York).

New York. Century Association. "Paintings from the Stephen C. Clark Collection," June 6–September 28, 1946, unnum. checklist (as "La Petite Margot Berard").

New York. M. Knoedler & Co.. "A Collectors Taste: Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen C. Clark," January 12–30, 1954, no. 15.

New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Paintings from Private Collections," May 31–September 5, 1955, no. 127 (as "Little Margot Bérard," lent by Stephen C. Clark).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paintings from Private Collections: Summer Loan Exhibition," July 1–September 1, 1958, no. 110 (lent by Stephen C. Clark).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paintings from Private Collections: Summer Loan Exhibition," July 7–September 7, 1959, no. 87 (lent by Stephen C. Clark).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paintings from Private Collections: Summer Loan Exhibition," July 6–September 4, 1960, no. 95 (lent by Stephen C. Clark).

Ottawa. National Gallery of Canada. "Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age," June 27–September 14, 1997, no. 34.

Art Institute of Chicago. "Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age," October 17, 1997–January 4, 1998, no. 34.

Fort Worth. Kimbell Art Museum. "Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age," February 8–April 26, 1998, no. 34.

Baltimore Museum of Art. "Faces of Impressionism: Portraits from American Collections," October 10, 1999–January 30, 2000, no. 57.

Museu de Arte de São Paulo. "Renoir, o pintor da vida," April 22–July 28, 2002, unnumbered cat.

Williamstown. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. "The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings," June 4–September 4, 2006, no. 342.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 99.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings," May 22–August 19, 2007, no. 342.

Auguste Renoir. Letters to Octave Maus. January 3, 4, [5–10], 1886 [published in Lionello Venturi, "Les archives de l'impressionnisme," Paris, 1939, vol. 2, pp. 227–29], lists it among paintings for the Brussels exhibition of 1886.

Théodore Duret. Manet and the French Impressionists. 2nd ed. [1st ed. 1910]. London, 1912, p. 178.

Madeleine Octave Maus. Trente années de lutte pour l'art: 1884–1914. Brussels, 1926, p. 43 n. 1, listed as a study of Margot among the works shown by Renoir at the 1886 exhibition of the XX in Brussels.

Josephine L. Allen. "Paintings by Renoir." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 32 (May 1937), p. 112, notes that Renoir painted her and her sisters numerous times.

Maurice Berard. "Maîtres du XIXe siècle: Renoir à Wargemont et la famille Berard." L'Amour de l'art 19 (1938), ill. p. 319.

Maurice Berard. Maitres du XIXe siècle: Renoir à Wargemont. Paris, 1938, unpaginated ill., as Marguerite.

S. Saunders. "Middle Men of Art." Vogue (March 15, 1938), p. 103, ill. (color).

James W. Lane. "Thirty-three Masterpieces in a Modern Collection: Mr. Stephen C. Clark's Paintings by American and European Masters." Art News Annual 37 (February 25, 1939), p. 133.

Alfred M. Frankfurter. Renoir, Centennial Loan Exhibition, 1841–1941. Exh. cat., Duveen Galleries. New York, 1941, pp. 49, 132–34, no. 27, ill., remarks that it is painted in the tradition of Clouet and Watteau.

Howard Devree. "Stephen C. Clarks Open Art Show at Home to Help Fresh Air Association of St. John." New York Times (April 2, 1948), p. 21.

A Collector's Taste: Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen C. Clark. Exh. cat., M. Knoedler & Co. New York, 1954, unpaginated, no. 15, ill.

Maurice Berard. "Un diplomate ami de Renoir." Revue d'histoire diplomatique 70 (July–September 1956), p. 243, writes that Renoir observed the sitter in tears after a German lesson gone wrong, and wanted to console her by doing a portrait of her as a cheerful little girl.

"Ninety-first Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year 1960–1961." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 20 (October 1961), ill. p. 43.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. "XIX–XX Centuries." French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 3, New York, 1967, pp. 152–53, ill., note that she was the youngest of the three daughters of Paul Berard, a French diplomat.

Margaretta M. Salinger. "Windows Open to Nature." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27 (Summer 1968), unpaginated, ill.

François Daulte. "Figures." Auguste Renoir: Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint. 1, Lausanne, 1971, unpaginated, no. 286, ill.

Barbara Ehrlich White. Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters. New York, 1984, p. 92, mentions it among the forty paintings, sixteen of which were portraits, that Renoir made for the Berard family between 1879 and 1885.

Colin B. Bailey in Colin B. Bailey. Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. New Haven, 1997, pp. 3, 170–71, 184, 301–2, no. 34, ill. (color), remarks that the white pinafore worn by Marguerite was what little girls wore for school lessons and domestic chores; notes that the costume is similar to that worn by her younger sister Lucie in Renoir's painting of her (private collection).

Sona Johnston and Susan Bollendorf in Faces of Impressionism: Portraits from American Collections. Exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art. New York, 1999, p. 152, under no. 57, ill. (color), notes that Margot's father commissioned it in the spring of 1879.

Sarah Lees in The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, Mass., 2006, pp. 315, 341, no. 342.

Richard Rand in The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, Mass., 2006, p. 259, fig. 190 (color), relates the anecdote that it was painted moments after the sitter had fled from her German tutor in tears [see Ref. Berard 1956].

Gilbert T. Vincent and Sarah Lees in The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, Mass., 2006, fig. 112 (color installation photograph of Stephen Clark's townhouse).

Guy-Patrice Dauberville, and Michel Dauberville, with Camille Fremontier-Murphy. "1858–1881." Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles. 1, Paris, 2007, p. 497, no. 503, ill., call it "Margot Bérard" and suggest that it may have been painted at Wargemont.

Susan Alyson Stein in The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 137, 252, no. 99, ill. (color and black and white).

Susan Alyson Stein in Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 154, 298, no. 143, ill. (color and black and white).

Marguerite Berard, known as Margot, was one of the three daughters of Paul Berard, a French diplomat and a friend of Renoir since 1879, when they met in the salon of Madame Charpentier. Renoir visited the Berards in Paris and spent several summers at their seaside home, Château de Wargemont, an eighteenth-century manor near Dieppe in Normandy, where he painted numerous portraits of the Berard family, and made decorations for the dining room.

B. E. White, in "Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters," New York, 1984, p. 92, notes that Renoir painted about forty pictures for the Berards at Wargemont, including sixteen portraits of family members, and illustrates a number of these works, as well as exterior and interior views of the chateau.