Chrysanthemums

1881/82

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919)

“I just let my brain rest when I paint flowers,” Pierre-Auguste Renoir remarked. “I don’t experience the same tension as I do when confronted by the model. When I am painting flowers, I establish the tones, I study the values carefully without worrying about losing the picture. I don’t dare do this with a figure piece for fear of ruining it.”

Status: On View, Gallery 201
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Title: Chrysanthemums
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1881–1882
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed upper right: Renoir
Dimensions: 54.8 × 65.8 cm (21 5/8 × 25 7/8 in.); Framed: 75.3 × 86.4 × 10.8 cm (29 5/8 × 34 × 4 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
Reference Number: 1933.1173
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/16617/manifest.json

Possibly Société du Salon d’Automne, Catalogue de peinture, dessin, sculpture, gravure, architecture et arts décoratifs, exh. cat. (Hérissey, 1904), p. 115, cat. 30.
Possibly Durand-Ruel, New York, Exhibition of Paintings by Pierre Auguste Renoir, exh. cat. (Durand-Ruel, New York, 1908), no. 12.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), p. 162, cat. 2154.
M. C., “Renoirs in the Institute (Continued),” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 19, 4 (Apr. 1925), pp. 47, 48 (ill.).
Daniel Catton Rich, “Französische Impressionisten im Art Institute zu Chicago,” Pantheon: Monatsschrift für Freunde und Sammler der Kunst 11, 3 (Mar. 1933), p. 78. Translated by C. C. H. Drechsel as “French Impressionists in the Art Institute of Chicago,” Pantheon/Cicerone (Mar. 1933), p. 18.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of “A Century of Progress”: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture; Lent from American Collections, ed. Daniel Catton Rich, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1933), p. 49, cat. 340.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of “A Century of Progress”: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, 1934, ed. Daniel Catton Rich, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1934), p. 39, cat. 228.
Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 1945), p. 36.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 397.
Charles C. Cunningham and Satoshi Takahashi, Shikago bijutsukan [Art Institute of Chicago], Museums of the World 32 (Kodansha, 1970), pp. 130, pl. 118; 177.
Elda Fezzi, L’opera completa di Renoir: Nel periodo impressionista, 1869–1883, Classici dell’arte 59 (Rizzoli, 1972), p. 111; 112, cat. 505 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by Renoir, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1973), pp. 74; 106–07, cat. 39 (ill.); 126; 210; 211; 214.
Isetan Museum of Art and Kyoto Municipal Museum, Exposition Renoir, exh. cat. (Isetan Museum of Art/Kyoto Municipal Museum/Yomiuri Shimbun Sha, 1979), cat. 33 (ill.).
Musée Toulouse-Lautrec and Art Institute of Chicago, Trésors impressionnistes du Musée de Chicago, exh. cat. (Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, 1980), pp. 40, no. 22 (ill.); 68.
Art Institute of Chicago, Seibu Museum of Art, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, and Fukuoka Art Museum, Shikago bijutsukan insho-ha ten [The Impressionist tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago], trans. Akihiko Inoue, Hideo Namba, Heisaku Harada, and Yoko Maeda, exh. cat. (Nihon Nippon Television Network, 1985), pp. 84, cat. 38 (ill.); 85 (detail); 148 (ill.).
Nagoya City Art Museum, Renoir Retrospective, exh. cat. (Nagoya City Art Museum/Chunichi Shimbun, 1988), pp. 72, 239.
Gerhard Gruitrooy, Renoir: A Master of Impressionism (Todtri, 1994), p. 52 (ill.).
Douglas W. Druick, Renoir, Artists in Focus (Art Institute of Chicago/Abrams, 1997), pp. 56–57; 63 (detail); 95, pl. 14; 110.
M. Therese Southgate, “The Cover,” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 281, 7 (Feb. 17, 1999), cover (ill.); p. 591 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in the Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood (Art Institute of Chicago/Hudson Hills, 2000), p. 76 (ill.).
Aviva Burnstock, Klaas Jan van den Berg, and John House, “Painting Techniques of Pierre-Auguste Renoir: 1868–1919,” Art Matters: Netherlandish Technical Studies in Art 3 (2005), pp. 52, 54.
Flavie Durand-Ruel, “Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) et Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922), son ami et marchand,” Renoir et les familiers des Collettes, exh. cat. (Trulli, 2008), p. 89 (ill.).
Galeries Nationales, Grand Palais, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Philadelphia Museum of Art, Renoir au XXe siècle, exh. cat. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d’Orsay, 2009), p. 103 (ill.).
Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Philadelphia Museum of Art, Renoir in the Twentieth Century, exh. cat. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Philadelphia Museum of Art/Hatje Cantz, 2010), p. 103 (ill.).
Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, with the assistance of Dorota Chudzicka and Jill Shaw, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Kimbell Art Museum, 2008), p. 83, cat. 35 (ill.). Simultaneously published as Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, with the assistance of Dorota Chudzicka and Jill Shaw, The Age of Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2008), p. 83, cat. 35 (ill.).
Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vol. 2, 1882–1894 (Bernheim-Jeune, 2009), p. 15, cat. 701 (ill.).
Sylvie Patin, “De la nature morte au paysage,” in Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d’Orsay, 2010), p. 223.
Colin B. Bailey, Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting, exh. cat. (Frick Collection/Yale University Press, 2012), p. 103, fig. 19.
“Cat. 15: Chrysanthemums, 1881/82,” in Renoir Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Gloria Groom and Jill Shaw (Art Institute of Chicago, 2014), https://publications.artic.edu/renoir/reader/paintingsanddrawings/section/138973.

Possibly Paris, Grand Palais, Salon d’automne, Oct. 15–Nov. 15, 1904, cat. 30, as Chrysanthèmes.
Possibly New York, Durand-Ruel, Exhibition of Paintings by Pierre Auguste Renoir, Nov. 14–Dec. 5, 1908, cat. 12, as Chrysanthèmes, 1882.
New York, Durand-Ruel, Exhibition of Paintings by Renoir, Feb. 7–21, 1914, cat. 1.
Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, May 23–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 340.
Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress” Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture for 1934, June 1–Oct. 31, 1934, cat. 228.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by Renoir, Feb. 3–Apr. 1, 1973, cat. 39 (ill.).
Pasadena, Calif., Norton Simon Museum of Art, Jan. 27–Oct. 31, 1978, no cat.
Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art, Exposition Renoir, Sept. 26–Nov. 6, 1979, cat. 33 (ill.); Kyoto Municipal Museum, Nov. 10–Dec. 9, 1979.
Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Trésors impressionnistes du Musée de Chicago, June 27–Aug. 31, 1980, cat. 22 (ill.).
Santa Barbara (Calif.) Museum of Art, Sept. 13, 1984–June 7, 1985, no cat.
Tokyo, Seibu Museum of Art, Shikago bijutsukan insho-ha ten [The Impressionist tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago], Oct. 18–Dec. 17, 1985, cat. 38 (ill.); Fukuoka Art Museum, Jan. 5–Feb. 2, 1986; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Mar. 4–Apr. 13, 1986.
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Dream, a World’s Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1893–1993, Nov. 1, 1993–Jan. 9, 1994, not in cat.
Fort Worth, Tex., Kimbell Art Museum, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–Nov. 2, 2008, cat. 35 (ill.).

The artist (d. 1919); sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, Dec. 14, 1882, for 600 francs. [per Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock book for 1880–84 (no. 2650), as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to Gloria Groom, Apr. 2, 2014, e-mail correspondence, curatorial object file]; transferred to Durand-Ruel, New York, 1897. [per Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to Gloria Groom, Apr. 2, 2014, e-mail correspondence, curatorial object file]; sold to Martin A. Ryerson (d. 1932), Chicago, Feb. 17, 1915, for $7,500. [per Durand-Ruel Archives, as confirmed by Caroline Durand-Ruel Godfroy, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Dec. 13, 1994, curatorial object file]; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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