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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 'The Umbrellas', about 1881-6
About the work
Overview
This painting places us in a busy Parisian street close to six principal figures who fill the foreground. A milling crowd behind them almost completely blocks out the boulevard beyond. The top quarter of the picture is mostly filled by a canopy of at least a dozen umbrellas.
Painted in two stages, with a gap of around four years between each stage, it shows the change in Renoir’s art during the 1880s, when he was beginning to move away from Impressionism and looking instead to classical art. The group on the right, which includes a mother and her two daughters and the woman in profile in the centre, is painted in a characteristically Impressionist manner with delicate feathery touches of rich luminous tones. On the left of the composition, completed during the second stage, Renoir adopted a more linear style. The figures here, including the full-length young woman and the man standing behind her, have clearly defined outlines, precisely drawn features and a greater sense of three-dimensional form.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- The Umbrellas
- Artist
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Artist dates
- 1841 - 1919
- Date made
- about 1881-6
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 180.3 × 114.9 cm
- Inscription summary
- Signed
- Acquisition credit
- Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917, The National Gallery, London. In partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.
- Inventory number
- NG3268
- Location
- Room 41
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Frame
- 18th-century French Frame
Provenance
Deposited by Renoir with Durand-Ruel, Paris, on 30 April 1890. Bought from the artist by Durand-Ruel on 3 February 1892. Bought from Durand Ruel by Sir Hugh Lane, Dublin, on 11 November 1907. Exhibited with other nineteenth-century foreign pictures in the Municipal Gallery, Dublin, from 1908 until 1913. Sir Hugh Lane Bequest to the National Gallery, London, 1917. On display at the Tate Gallery (then National Gallery, Millbank); transferred from the Tate Gallery in 1935.
Additional information
For further information, see C. Bailey, 'The Umbrellas (Les Parapluies)' in C. Bailey, 'Renoir, Impressionism, and the Full-length Format: Impressionism and Full-Length Painting', New Haven, 2012, pp. 138-165.
Exhibition history
-
2012Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length PaintingThe Frick Collection7 February 2012 - 13 May 2012
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2012Long Loan to The Hugh Lane (2012 - 2019) (Group A)Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane31 December 2012 - 20 October 2019
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2024National TreasuresLeicester Museum and Art Gallery10 May 2024 - 1 September 2024
Bibliography
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1908S. Harrison, Illustrated Catalogue, with Biographical and Critical Notes, Dublin 1908
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1917L.H. Cust, 'Manet at the National Gallery', The Burlington Magazine, XXX/168, 1917, pp. 110-5
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1917R. Fry, 'The Sir Hugh Lane Pictures at the National Gallery', The Burlington Magazine, XXX/169, 1917, pp. 148-53
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1918A. Vollard, Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Paintings, Pastels and Drawings, Paris 1918
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1920G. Geffroy, 'Renoir, peintre de la femme', L'art et les artistes, 4, 1920, pp. 151-62
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1922C. Bell, Since Cézanne, London 1922
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1926G. Coquiot, Renoir, Paris 1926
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1932T. Bodkin, Hugh Lane and his Pictures, Dublin 1932
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1944M. Drucker, Renoir, Paris 1944
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1945C. Bell, National Gallery Books 6. Auguste Renoir: Les Parapluies, London 1945
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1945O. Demus, 'The Literature of Art: Auguste Renoir: Les Parapluies', The Burlington Magazine, LXXXVII/511, 1945, pp. 258-9
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1946Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, London 1946
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1951W. Pach, Renoir, London 1951
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1957Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1957
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1970Davies, Martin, and Cecil Gould, National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists etc., London 1970
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1971F. Daulte, Auguste Renoir: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, I: Figures 1860-1890, Lausanne 1971
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1982W. Gaunt, Renoir, Oxford 1982
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1985J. House, A. Distel and L. Gowing, Renoir (exh. cat. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 15 May - 2 September 1985), Paris 1985
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1988B.E. White, Renoir: His Life, Art and Letters, New York 1988
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1988National Gallery, 'Pictures Cleaned and Restored in the Conservation Department of the National Gallery, 1987', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XII, 1988
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1990D. Bomford, R. White and L. Williams, Impressionism (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 1990), London 1990
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1993R. White and J. Pilc, 'Analyses of Paint Media', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XIV, 1993, pp. 86-94
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1993A. Distel et al., Great French Paintings from the Barnes Foundation: Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Early Modern (exh. cat. National Museum of Western Art (Tokyo), 22 January - 3 April 1994), New York 1993
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1994J. House, Impressionisim for England: Samuel Courtauld as Patron and Collector, London 1994
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1994C. Phillips, 'National Gallery, II: Sir Hugh Lane's Pictures', in J. House, Impressionism for England: Samuel Courtauld as Patron and Collector, London 1994
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1995P. Smith, Impressionism: Beneath the Surface, New York 1995
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1998J. Leighton, 'Taking a Closer Look: Art Historians, Restorers and Scientists', Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, XI, 1998, pp. 29-33
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2000R. O'Byrne, Hugh Lane, 1875-1915, Dublin 2000
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2003S. Pacaud, Il était une fois… La condition de la femme à la belle Époque à travers la carte postale, Romorantin 2003
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2004A. Kelly, 'The Lane Bequest: A British-Irish Cultural Conflict Revisited', Journal of the History of Collections, XVI/1, 2004, pp. 89-110
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2005C. Harrison, Painting the Difference: Sex and Spectator in Modern Art, Chicago 2005
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2006A. D'Souza and T. McDonoughs (eds), The Invisible Flâneuse? Gender, Public Space and Visual Culture in Nineteenth Century Paris, Manchester 2006
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2006C. Riopelle, Manet to Picasso, London 2006
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2006S.M. Søndergaard, Women in Impressionism: From Mythical Feminine to Modern Woman (exh. cat. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 6 October 2006 - 21 January 2007), Milan 2006
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2012C. Bailey, 'The Umbrellas (Les Parapluies)' in C. Bailey, Renoir, Impressionism, and the Full-length Format: Impressionism and Full-Length Painting, New Haven 2012, pp. 138-65
About this record
If you know more about this work or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
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