Renoir depicts the five-year-old daughter of his devoted patron Paul Berard, a diplomat and banker whom he met in 1878. The artist often summered 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, ranging 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 to "cheer her up" after a disagreeable lesson with her German tutor had brought her to tears.
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The Berard Family: The third of four children of Paul Berard (1833–1905) and his wife, born Marguerite Girod (1844–1901), was a girl, who was named for her mother and called Margot. Her father descended from wealthy Protestant bankers and was a member of the administration of the diplomatic corps. He lived with his family at 20 rue Pigalle in Paris and on a family country estate at Wargemont, near Dieppe in Normandy, which he evidently preferred. The couple met Renoir at one of the Salons of Madame Charpentier and, despite the great distance that separated them both financially and socially, Paul Berard became not only the artist’s patron but also his friend. From July until September 1879, Renoir made the first of several long summer visits to Wargemont. Always exceedingly sociable, he was soon absorbed into the family, and comfortable among them and their staff. Renoir saw Paul Berard in Paris as well and sought his financial advice. They corresponded for decades.
The Portraits: The first work the couple commissioned, early in 1879, was a formal full-length portrait of their oldest daughter, Marthe. Standing in a neutral interior, Marthe wears a dark velvet dress with an elaborate lace collar, matching cuffs, and a wide pale blue sash (Museu de Arte de São Paulo, MASP 00098). Renoir asked as much for it as he asked for his exceptionally large canvas representing Madame Charpentier together with her two children (The Met 07.122), which, painted in 1878, was exhibited at the Salon in 1879. A modest head-and-shoulders of Madame Berard wearing black (Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 1978 14), dated 1879, and a slightly smaller work depicting the couple’s only son André (on the art market in 2016; Daulte 285) soon followed. Renoir prepared a sympathetic close-up of the serious boy in blue with a wide white collar against a lighter background. In 1880, the artist completed a conventional three-quarter-length of Paul Berard in a lounge suit, seated in an armchair while smoking a cigarette (private collection; Daulte 339). Soon after the birth at Wargemont of the couple’s fourth child, Lucie, in the summer of 1881, he depicted the baby with heads of all three of her siblings on a single canvas (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., 1955.590). While visiting the Berard family in Normandy in 1884, he took sittings for a large canvas showing the three girls in a brightly lit room of their country house (Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, A I 969). It might be described as a genre scene. Crisply executed principally in white and blues, Children’s Afternoon at Wargemont is bright, linear, and modern. It was acquired in 1913 for the Berlin museum.
The Painting: Margot’s small portrait, from the summer of 1879, is similar to those of her parents in that it is traditional in presentation and dark in coloring, with a purplish-red background. Renoir’s conservative treatment must have been in accord with the wishes of the child’s parents, who, then little acquainted with the new style, were not sophisticated collectors. Children’s Afternoon, by contrast, suggests that Paul Berard’s taste grew more attuned to Renoir’s own. As to the artist, his intimacy with the couple’s son and daughters and his concern for their well-being is most apparent in this small half-length of a little girl of five in a dark blue nursery or school dress and a pinafore. While the artist shows that she was rather slight, the child’s enormous inquiring blue eyes indicate her indomitable energy and the spirit with which she challenged her world. Her pale face is surrounded by a mass of fine silvery blond hair. According to a family member, Renoir made this study of Margot when by chance he found her seated on the stairs, weeping, as the result of an unhappy lesson with her German teacher. The artist wanted to cheer her up. She later remembered that the picture was painted quickly.
The Sitter: In 1896, Marguerite ("Margot") Berard married her first cousin, Alfred Berard who, during the summer months, had grown up on an adjoining property, and who also sat for Renoir. They had two children. Margot spent much of her adult life in the country. She sold the portrait during the Great Depression.
Katharine Baetjer 2021
Inscription: Signed and dated (upper left): Renoir 79.
Paul Berard, Paris and Wargemont, near Dieppe (from 1879; d. 1905); by descent to his daughter, the sitter, Mme Alfred (Marguerite) Berard, Paris (until 1936; sold in April for Fr 130,000 to Knoedler); [Knoedler, Paris and New York, 1936–37, stock no. A1668, as "Portrait de Madame Berard enfant"; sold on January 25 for $16,000 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. Palais des Beaux-Arts. "Troisième exposition annuelle des XX," February 6–March 14, 1886, no. 4 (as "Margot. Étude," lent by Paul Berard).
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).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "French Paintings from the Bequest of Stephen Clark," October 17, 1961–January 7, 1962, no catalogue (as "Margot Berard").
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, Tex. 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. "Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings: The Clark Brothers Collect," 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.
"Causerie artistique." Journal de Bruxelles 52 (February 14, 1886), p. 1, declares it as the best of Renoir’s submissions to the exhibition; describes the subject’s “petulant eyes feverish with mischief," her “overly intelligent smile on excessively fine lips,” and her “thin blond hair whose pale reflections seem to fall from some dying sun”; characterizes these features as “the expression of an exhausted race”.
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. 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).
Maurice Berard. "Maîtres du XIXe siècle: Renoir à Wargemont et la famille Berard." L'amour de l'art 19 (1938), ill. p. 319.
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.
"One of the Greatest Exhibitions of Modern Art Ever Assembled." The Standard (August 19, 1939), p. ?, calls it "one of his lovely electric children".
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.
James Thrall Soby. "Collectors' Choice." The Saturday Review (July 2, 1955), p. 34?, states that the picture's "tenderness has been known to melt the most cynical observers".
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. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 3, XIX–XX Centuries. 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. Auguste Renoir: Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint. Vol. 1, Figures. 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.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 482, ill. p. 481.
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 inFaces of Impressionism: Portraits from American Collections. Ed. Sona Johnston. 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 inThe Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, Mass., 2006, pp. 315, 341, no. 342.
Gilbert T. Vincent and Sarah Lees inThe 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).
Richard Rand inThe 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].
Guy-Patrice Dauberville, and Michel Dauberville, with Camille Fremontier-Murphy. Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles. Vol. 1, 1858–1881. Paris, 2007, p. 497, no. 503, ill.
Susan Alyson Stein inThe 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 inMasterpieces 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).
Anne Distel. Renoir. New York, 2010, p. 169, colorpl. 154.
Daniel Marchesseau inPierre-Auguste Renoir: Revoir Renoir. Ed. Daniel Marchesseau. Exh. cat., Fondation Pierre Gianadda. Martigny, 2014, pp. 138, 312.
John Collins inRenoir Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. Ed. Gloria Groom and Jill Shaw. Chicago, 2014, n. 8, under no. 8; para. 3, under no. 16, fig. 16.2 (color) [https://publications.artic.edu/renoir/reader/paintingsanddrawings/section/138973].
White 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. Renoir also made decorations for the dining room in the Berards' eighteenth-century manor.
Auguste Renoir (French, Limoges 1841–1919 Cagnes-sur-Mer)
1894
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