The Daughters of Catalle Mendes, Huguette 1888
(click image to enlarge)
Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City
Hopng to recapture the success he had achieved with "Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children" (on view in an adjacent gallery) at the Salon of 1879, Renoir asked his friend Catulle Medes for permissionion to paint his three daughters, Mendes was a well-known writer and publisher of Symbolist poetry\;his companion, Augusta Holmes, a virtuoso pianist and composer, was the mother of these girls.
Renoir sent the portrait to a group exhibition in 1888 that was a critical disater; the painting was ignored again at the 1890 Salon. It has since emerged, however, as one of Renoir's most impressive works, realized in this new, aggressive coloristic style. In the fluid brushwork and treatment of theme, the portrait pays homage to
Fragonard and other eighteenth-century genre painters.
Renoir sent the portrait to a group exhibition in 1888 that was a critical disater; the painting was ignored again at the 1890 Salon. It has since emerged, however, as one of Renoir's most impressive works, realized in this new, aggressive coloristic style. In the fluid brushwork and treatment of theme, the portrait pays homage to
Fragonard and other eighteenth-century genre painters.
