HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY—A TRIBUTE TO ALINE, RENOIR’S BELOVED MUSE
Aline Charigot (1859-1915) was only in her early twenties when she first appeared as one of Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s models. For instance, she is likely the young woman in Oarsmen at Chatou who is about to embark on an outing down the Seine.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Oarsmen at Chatou, 1879, oil on canvas, Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
She has also been identified in Young Woman Sewing, where it appears that Renoir is already smitten with the lovely seamstress from Paris. In fact, did the artist sense, as sometimes happens, that Aline was to become the center of his life?
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Young Woman Sewing, 1879, oil on canvas, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
The couple would eventually marry and have three children, starting with Pierre depicted with Aline below in 1886, followed in 1894 by Jean and then in 1901 by Claude or “Coco.”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Laundress and Her Child (Aline and Pierre), c. 1886, pastel on brown paper, Bequest of Alexander Ginn, 1977, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
Ultimately, Aline and Renoir would reside in Cagnes, in the South of France, where they moved because of his chronic rheumatoid arthritis that he suffered from for years.
Yet, it would be Aline who would predecease Renoir. For in 1915, shortly after visiting her son Jean who had been critically wounded in World War I, she would succumb to heart failure. In his biography of his father, Renoir: My Father, Jean would later credit his mother with saving him from death, intervening when his leg was about to be amputated:
She opposed the operation with such energy that the military doctor at the hospital abandoned the idea. He was replaced by Professor Laroyenne, a specialist, who cured the gangrene by using a curious system of circulating distilled water through my leg. He did not conceal from my mother that I would not have survived the amputation. As soon as my mother saw that I was out of danger, she went back to Cagnes and died.*
So, Renoir’s beloved muse and inspiration, would die a heroine.
*Renoir, My Father by Jean Renoir, published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, MA in 1962.
Oarsmen at Chatou
In the public domain, courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The National Gallery of Art does not endorse or approve use of the above image or any of the material on this website. Nor has the National Gallery of Art participated in any projects utilizing the said image.
Young Woman Sewing
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The Art Institute of Chicago does not endorse or approve use of the above image or any of the material on this website. Nor has the Art Institute of Chicago participated in any projects utilizing the said image.
Pierre and Aline
In the public domain, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio. You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission.
The Cleveland Museum of Art does not endorse or approve use of the above image or any of the material on this website. Nor has the Cleveland Museum of Art participated in any projects utilizing the said image.
