Young Girl in a Pink-and-Black Hat

Models in Hats: A chapeau (hat) was an essential part of outdoor dress for nineteenth-century European women in polite society, offering the wearer an opportunity to draw attention to herself, make a statement about her position, or demonstrate her fashion knowledge and style. Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and James Tissot, among others, painted portrait sitters as well as models wearing hats. Manet, in fact, anticipated Renoir’s best work of the kind with his pastel profile head of Irma Brummer (Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 4101, R) of about 1880. Renoir produced much the largest number, owing not only to his obsessive interest but also to his commercial stake in depictions of anonymous adolescent girls and young women, singly or in pairs, modelling hats. Their identities were not intended to be revealed (some of their faces are largely hidden) or disclosed. Because the pictures were pretty, palatable, and uncontroversial, they were easy to sell. Renoir is known to have visited hat shops. If a hat was painted when worn by more than one individual, it probably belonged to the artist himself, who owned many hats as part of his studio property.

The Painting: The girl’s delicate white skin and reddish blond curly hair contrast startlingly with the black and brilliant pink of the feathered straw hat. The S-curve of the sweeping brim opposes the delicate contours of her profile. Her dress is shell pink with puffed sleeves and a V-neck, exposing the paler pink color of her breast. The white feathers at lower left suggest a fan. No other images by Renoir of this model have been identified with certainty.

The very small canvas is a fine, early example of a type. Durand-Ruel bought it from the artist on June 11, 1891, and sold it to a private collector in March 1892, commanding four times the price he had originally paid. On the same day, the dealer purchased a small half-length of an elegant young woman in a white costume with an extravagant yellow hat featuring a deeply curving brim and white feathers, to which Renoir added gauze veiling (National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, P.1959-0181). Both paintings date either to May or the first days of June 1891, or perhaps to the summer of 1890, and they may have initiated a trend.

Katharine Baetjer 2021

Inscription: Signed (lower left): Renoir

[Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1891–92; bought from the artist, June 11, 1891, for Fr 250; sold March 22, 1892, for Fr 1,000 to Lesueur]; J. Lesueur, Paris (from 1892); Marcel Kapferer, Paris; Mrs. Marie Harriman, New York; Kathryn Bache (Mrs. Gilbert) Miller, New York (until 1964; life interest, 1964–d. 1979)

Paris. Galeries Durand-Ruel. "Exposition A. Renoir," May 1892, no. 109 (as "Femme au chapeau," lent by M. J. Lesueur).

New York. Acquavella Galleries. "Four Masters of Impressionism," October 24–November 30, 1968, no. 16 (as "Jeune fille au chapeau," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Miller).

New York. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. "Renoir, the Gentle Rebel," October 24–November 30, 1974, no. 47 (as "Young Girl in a Pink and Black Hat").

Tokyo. Tobu Museum of Art. "Exposition Auguste Renoir," July 24–September 15, 1993, no. 11 (as "Jeune fille au chapeau rose et noir").

Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. "Exposition Auguste Renoir," October 2–31, 1993, no. 11.

Kasama Nichido Museum of Art. "Exposition Auguste Renoir," November 3–30, 1993, no. 11.

Chiba. Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art. "Renoir: Modern Eyes," April 3–May 16, 1999, no. 7 (as "Young Girl in a Pink-and-Black Hat").

Miyagi Museum of Art. "Renoir: Modern Eyes," May 25–July 4, 1999, no. 7.

Sapporo. Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art. "Renoir: Modern Eyes," July 15–August 29, 1999, no. 7.

Sendai, Japan. Miyagi Museum of Art. "Image of Color: Pierre-Auguste Renoir," January 14–April 16, 2017, no. 30.

J[ean].-G[abriel]. Goulinat. "À propos du métier de Renoir." L'art vivant 60 (July 1933), p. 294, ill.

Michel Florisoone. Renoir. Paris, 1937, p. 166, ill. p. 53 [English ed., 1938].

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 3, XIX–XX Centuries. New York, 1967, pp. 148–49, ill., dates it between 1875 and 1879.

François Daulte. Auguste Renoir: Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint. Vol. 1, Figures. Lausanne, 1971, unpaginated, no. 595, ill., dates it 1890.

Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 158–59, ill. (color), distinguishes this and other bust-length paintings of young women with stylish hats of the 1890s from Renoir's pictures of women in millinery shops done in the 1880s.

Yoshihiro Nakatani. Exposition Auguste Renoir. Exh. cat., Tobu Museum of Art. [Tokyo?], 1993, pp. 52–53, 58, no. 11, ill. (color), suggests the influences of Watteau and Fragonard.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 480, ill.

AF/YS. Renoir: Modern Eyes. Exh. cat., Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art. Sapporo, 1999, pp. 36–37, no. 7, ill. (color), remarks that both of Renoir's parents made clothing, his father as a tailor and his mother as a seamstress, and that this stimulated his interest in female portraits wearing elaborate costumes and hats, which were required for upper-class women to wear outdoors.

Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville. Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles. Vol. 3, 1895–1902. Paris, 2010, pp. 288–89, no. 2210, ill., as "vers 1895".

Daniel Marchesseau in Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Revoir Renoir. Ed. Daniel Marchesseau. Exh. cat., Fondation Pierre Gianadda. Martigny, 2014, ill. p. 194 (color).