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Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children is an 1878 painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It depicts Marguerite Charpentier, a French salonist, art collector, and advocate of the Impressionists, and her children Georgette and Paul. Due to financial difficulties from 1876 to 1878, Renoir was unable to survive selling his work through Impressionist exhibitions, forcing him to abandon the Impressionists and return to the Salon in 1879 with this painting after a five year absence. The painting was well received, and represents his first major success after Lise with a Parasol a decade earlier. The showing at the Salon eventually led to a new stream of wealthy patrons who commissioned portraits from Renoir. This period of his work, from 1878 to 1884, represents Renoir’s transition from constant struggling, uncertainty, and economic poverty, to a new life of success, recognition, wealth, and stability. The painting is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Background[edit]

French publisher Georges Charpentier (1846-1905) was an early advocate of Impressionism, and began buying paintings by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) in the 1870s.^[1] Although not yet personally acquainted with Renoir, Charpentier purchased three paintings by him at the Second Impressionist exhibition in 1875, including the Fisherman (Le Pêcheur à la ligne, 1874). By 1876, Renoir, Claude Monet (1840–1926), and Alfred Sisley (1839–1899) were sending letters of correspondence to the Charpentier family appealing for financial help.^[2] From 1876 to 1879, Georges Charpentier and his wife Marguerite would become Renoir’s primary patrons.^[3]

• Fisherman (Le Pêcheur à la ligne, 1874)

Description[edit]

The painting is signed and dated “Renoir 78” in the lower right corner.^[4]

Exhibition[edit]

The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1879 (no. 2527).^[4]

It was later exhibited in Brussels in 1886 (no. 2); at Georges Petit Paris in 1886 (no. 124); by Renoir in 1892 and 1900 (no. 17); and finally in Brussels in 1904 (no. 129).^[4]

Style and themes[edit]

Kathleen Adler of the National Gallery writes that “Renoir’s portraits of female sitters often include references to a setting that serves to position them in terms of wealth and status”.^[5]

Critical reception[edit]

Influence[edit]

Art curator Trevor Fairbrother notes that American artist John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) draws upon similar depictions in his painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882). Sargent was familiar with Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children after it appeared at the Salon.^[6] Art historian Anne Dawson observes that the visual elements in the portrait Emma and Her Children (1923) by American realist painter George Wesley Bellows (1882–1925) are suggestive of Renoir’s painting.^[7] Writer Carrie Coolidge notes that Bellows was a fan of Renoir and the painting.^[8]

French novelist Marcel Proust viewed the painting on one of his visits to the Charpentiers and later added it to Le Temps retrouvé (Time Regained), the last and seventh volume of In Search of Lost Time.^[9]

According to stylist Sam Ratelle, the black velvet tuxedo dress designed by Christian Siriano for American actor Billy Porter to wear at the 91st Academy Awards was inspired by Madame Charpentier’s dress in the painting.^[10]

• The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) by John Singer…