Invoice from Durand-Ruel, to Robert Sterling Clark, for the purchase of five paintings. Dated 4 October 1937.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
French, 1841–1919
The Letter
c. 1895–1900
A woman wearing an elaborately decorated hat inclines her head to look at a letter written by her companion. The painting looks like a slice of everyday life in a middle-class home in late-nineteenth-century France, but in fact, the intimate scene is a fiction, staged by the artist using models. The subject gave Renoir an opportunity to experiment with contrasting colors, particularly white and black, as well as red and green. The straw hat was a studio prop, long out of fashion by the 1890s.
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 25 9/16 x 31 15/16 in. (64.9 x 81.1 cm) Frame: 32 3/4 x 39 1/2 x 2 3/4 in. (83.2 x 100.3 x 7 cm) |
| Object Number | 1955.583 |
| Acquisition | Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955 |
| Status | On View |
Image Caption
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Letter, c. 1895–1900, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.583
Select Bibliography
Art Gallery of Ontario. Loan Exhibition of the Paintings Celebrating the Opening of the Margaret Easton Gallery and the East Gallery. Exhibition catalogue. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1935.
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.. Exhibit Six: Impressionist Paintings.. Opened Sept. 18, 1956.. Wildenstein & Company. An Exhibition of Treasures from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts: Paintings, drawings & rare silver, for the benefit of the Committee to Rescue Italian Art, inc. (CRIA). Exhibition catalogue. New York: Wildenstein & Company, 1967. Ludig, Sandra G. Between the Lines: Ladies and Letters at the Clark. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1982. The Mainchi Newspapers.. Renoir in Japan. Tobu Museum, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum; Musée Kasama-Nichido, July 22-Nov. 30, 1993.. 1993.. 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 C., R. F. "Williamstown: Nuove opere alla Galleria Clark." Emporium 129, no. 770 (February 1959): 76-81. Soichi Tominaga.. L'Art moderne du Monde, vol. 4, Renoir.. Tokyo: Zauho Press.. 1969.. 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. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. 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. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011.EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY
Provenance
The artist, sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, 17 Dec. 1904; [Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York, 1904-37, sold to Clark, 4 Oct. 1937]; Robert Sterling Clark (1937–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.
