Woman with a Guitar by Renoir in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 2012

Woman with a Guitar

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French, 1841 - 1919

Geography: Made in France, Europe

Date: c. 1918

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 24 3/16 x 19 3/4 inches (61.4 x 50.2 cm)

Curatorial Department: European Painting before 1900, Johnson Collection

Object Location: Gallery 162, European Art 1850-1900, first floor (Vogt Gallery)

Accession Number: 1959-83-1

Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Mahlon Buck, 1959

Provenance: In Renoir's studio at his death, 1919 [1]; with Ambroise Vollard, Paris; with Bernheim-Jeune, Paris [2]. Private collection (Madame R.G.), Paris, by 1934 [3]. Senator Arthur Charles Hardy (1872-1962), Ottawa, by 1943 and possibly still in 1958 [4]. With Hirschl-Adler Galleries, New York; with dealer T. Gilbert Brouillette, Gilsport Manor, New York, 1959 [5]; sold to J. Mahlon Buck, Bryn Mawr, 1959; gift to PMA, 1959. 1. See L'Atelier de Renoir, Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 1931, vol. 2, pl. 220, no. 695. 2. Vollard and Bernheim-Jeune are listed in the provenance provided in 1959 by T. Gilbert Brouillette (curatorial file). Bernheim-Jeune have not been able to confirm that the painting went through them (letter from Guy-Patrice Dauberville dated 10 March 2004, in curatorial file). 3. Exhibited in Paris at the Paul Rosenberg Galleries in 1934 by Madame R.G. The painting was illustrated in M. Drucker, Renoir, 1944 and 1949 editions, no. 160, p. 210, as collection of Madame R.G., Paris; however, these dates are apparently contradicted by the letter from a subsequent owner, Arthur Charles Hardy, cited below. 4. The Honorable Arthur Charles Hardy was a Canadian Senator from 1922 through at least 1958 (see The International Who's Who, 1958, p. 382). A letter of 22 January 1943 from Senator Hardy to the National Gallery of Canada director H. O. McCurry (preserved in the archive of the National Gallery of Canada), offers to lend for display at the NGC "one very fine Renoir, being the painter's girl model playing a guitar." The painting was apparently never lent, but the letter probably confirms Senator Hardy's ownership at this time (he and his family donated several works to the NGC around this date). According to a letter from Wildenstein & Co., New York, March 16, 1967 (curatorial file), their records indicated that the painting was in the collection of author Dr. Marcel Zahar (Paris) in 1949, and in the collection of Senator Hardy c. 1958. However, if the PMA painting is the one described in Hardy's 1943 letter, this must be an error. Zahar published the painting in his 1948 book on Renoir (pl. 101), simply as "former collection of Mr. R. G.." Drucker published the painting in 1955 (Renoir, Paris, 1955, no. 140) as "Paris, private collection," also presumably in error. 5. See Brouillette letter, December 12, 1965 in curatorial file.

Text from: www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/57740.html?mulR=581722549|1