Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Madame Charpentier - 01

Renoir - Madame Georges Charpentier et ses enfants

Marguerite Charpentier (1 March 1848 – 30 November 1904) was a French

salonist A salon is a gathering of people held by an inspiring host. During the gathering they amuse one another and increase their knowledge through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "e ...

and art collector who was one of the earliest champions of the

Impressionists Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

, especially

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "R ...

Biography

She was born Marguerite Louise Lemonnier in Paris to Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier, the court jeweler, and Sophie Raymonde (née Duchâtenet). In 1871, she married the publisher Georges Charpentier and they had four children: Georgette, Marcel, Paul, and Jeanne. On Fridays from the mid 1870s to the early 1890s, Charpentier ran a political and literary salon at her house to which she invited writers, artists, musicians, actors, and politicians. Among those who attended were writers represented by her husband, including

Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...

Alphonse Daudet Alphonse Daudet (; 13 May 184016 December 1897) was a French novelist. He was the husband of Julia Daudet and father of Edmée, Léon and Lucien Daudet. Early life Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the ''bo ...

Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...

Théodore de Banville Théodore Faullain de Banville (14 March 1823 – 13 March 1891) was a French poet and writer. His work was influential on the Symbolist movement in French literature in the late 19th century. Biography Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, ...

Joris-Karl Huysmans Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (, ; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel ''À rebou ...

, and

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...

. Artists who came ranged from traditional realists like

Carolus-Duran Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (Lille 4 July 1837 – 17 February 1917 Paris), was a French painter and art instructor. He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France. Biograph ...

and

Jean-Jacques Henner Jean-Jacques Henner (5 March 1829 – 23 July 1905) was a French painter, noted for his use of sfumato and chiaroscuro in painting nudes, religious subjects and portraits. Biography Henner was born at Bernwiller (Alsace). He began his studies ...

to Impressionists such as

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Born ...

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedicatio ...

Gustave Caillebotte Gustave Caillebotte (; 19 August 1848 – 21 February 1894) was a French painter who was a member and patron of the Impressionists, although he painted in a more realistic manner than many others in the group. Caillebotte was known for his early ...

, and

. Other visitors included the art critic

Théodore Duret Théodore Duret (20 January 1838, Saintes – 16 January 1927, Paris) was a French journalist, author and art critic. He was one of the first advocates of Courbet, Manet, and the Impressionists. One of his best known works is ''Critique d'Ava ...

, the art collector

Charles Ephrussi Charles Ephrussi (24 December 1849 – 30 September 1905) was a French art critic, art historian, and art collector. He also was a part-owner (from 1885) and then editor (from 1894) as well as a contributor to the ''Gazette des Beaux-Arts'', th ...

, the composers

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...

and

Jules Massenet Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are '' Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther' ...

, and the actor

Sarah Bernhardt Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including '' La Dame Aux Camel ...

. Charpentier and her husband amassed a small but significant collection of paintings, mostly by French

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painters. In 1875, Charpentier acquired three Impressionist paintings by Renoir, making her one of the first art collectors to buy Impressionist work. Renoir executed half a dozen commissioned portraits of Charpentier and her family, and even described himself at one point as the Charpentiers' "private painter". His 1878 portrait of Charpentier and two of her children was acclaimed at the 1879 Paris Salon, and the writer

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

refers to this painting in the last volume of his novel cycle ''

In Search of Lost Time ''In Search of Lost Time'' (french: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French ...

''. In the early 1880s, Georges Charpentier's publishing firm ran into financial difficulties and the Charpentiers were forced to sell off part of the art collection. After Marguerite Charpentier died in 1904 and Georges in 1905, their surviving children auctioned the remainder of the art collection. Some of it is now in major museums, including the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Works in the Charpentier collection

* Paul Cézanne, '' Marion and Valabregue in Search of a Motif to Paint'' (1866) * Edouard Manet, '' The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama'' (1864) * Claude Monet, '' Les glaçons'' (''The Ice Floes'', 1880) * Pierre-Auguste Renoir, '' Le Pêcheur à la ligne'' (1874) * Pierre-Auguste Renoir, '' Mlle Georgette Charpentier'' (1876) * Pierre-Auguste Renoir, ''Mme Georges Charpentier and Her Children'' (1878) * Pierre-Auguste Renoir, ''Mme Charpentier'' (c. 1876) * Pierre-Auguste Renoir, '' Paul Charpentier'' (1877) * Pierre-Auguste Renoir, '' ''Portrait of a Man (Monsieur Charpentier)'' (1878)

References

Sources

This page is in part a translation from :de:Marguerite Charpentier. Sources on that page include: * * De Goncourt, Edmond. '' Journal des Goncourt'', vol. 5 (1872–1877). Paris: Bibliothèque-Charpentier, 1891. (in French) * * * * Robida, Michel. ''Le Salon Charpentier et les impressionistes''. Paris: Bibliothèque des arts, 1958. (in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Charpentier, Marguerite 1848 births 1904 deaths French art collectors Women art collectors French salon-holders Place of birth missing