Pierre-Auguste Renoir
French, 1841–1919
Tama, the Japanese Dog
c. 1876
Renoir painted this image of a Japanese spaniel for his friend Henri Cernuschi, a banker and collector of Asian art. The breed, a favorite of the Japanese imperial family, was considered fashionably exotic when Cernuschi brought the dog to France in 1873. The pet’s black-and-white fur stands out against the colored brushstrokes of the background, which partly obscure an inscription of its name, Tama, faintly visible in the painting’s top left corner.
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 15 1/16 x 18 3/16 in. (38.3 x 46.2 cm) Frame: 21 x 24 3/16 in. (53.3 x 61.4 cm) |
| Object Number | 1955.597 |
| Acquisition | Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955 |
| Status | On View |
Image Caption
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Tama, the Japanese Dog, c. 1876, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.597
Select Bibliography
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.. Exhibit Six: Impressionist Paintings.. Opened Sept. 18, 1956..
Kern, Steven, et al. A Passion for Renoir: Sterling and Francine Clark Collect, 19161951. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1996
Elda Fezzi.. L'opera complete di Renoir, nel periodo impressionista 1869-1883.. Milan: Rizzoli.. 1972..
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970.
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972.
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984.
Robert Rosemblum.. The Dog in Art from Rococo to Post-Modernism.. New York: Abrams.. 1988..
Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992.
Takao Okamura.. Shukan Bijutsukan.. Tokyo: Shogakukan.. January 30, 2001..
Billeter, Erika. Hunde und Ihre Maler: Zwischen Tizians Aristokraten und Picassos Gauklern. Bern: Benteli Verlag AG, 2005.
Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.
EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY
Provenance
Possibly Henri Cernuschi, Paris; Paul Roux, Paris; [Knoedler, Paris, sold to Clark, 1 May 1930]; Robert Sterling Clark (1930–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.
