ALS in French, signed “Renoir,” two pages on two adjoining sheets, 5.25 x 8.25, no date but circa October 1890. Letter written from his new workshop. In part (translated): “I learned today when I was at Durand Ruel that you came to Paris, furious to have missed you. I was near Paris in Anvers, trying to capture the secrets of autumnal nature, and then I went home. Continuing my relocation because all my affairs are thrown together in a heap and I have not yet done anything…I take this opportunity to tell you that I am still scratching out paintings, and that I still believe I can find the secrets of the Masters. It is as good an infatuation as any other, and that absorbs me to a ridiculous point, but it amuses me, with this I can get to a well-deserved old age and to the grave without noticing it too much. I know less and less what is happening and I would be happy if I did not have such high paint bills to pay…I have to find my lost models and get back to drawing.” In fine condition, with small repaired partial separations to central horizontal fold.
Renoir’s marriage to girlfriend Aline Charigot in 1890 inspired the impressionist leader to create many of his most influential works in the years ahead. Employing his old method of dissolving outlines with the use of thinly brushed colors, Renoir painted numerous scenes of his growing family while punctuating his acclaimed ‘two girls’ series with the tenderly achieved ‘Girls at the Piano.’ Although he would develop rheumatoid arthritis in 1892, Renoir’s migration to the warmer climate of Cagnes-sur-Mer enabled the artist to continue painting for the remainder of his life. Shortly before his death, Renoir, now restricted to a wheelchair and his hand dexterity nearly debilitated, traveled to the Louvre in 1919 to observe his own pieces aligned with those “of the Masters”—an experience that surely affirmed Renoir’s lifelong admiration. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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