Pierre-Auguste Renoir 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 “Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau.”
Reviewers of the 1882 Impressionist exhibition were dazzled by this “very appealing” still life of “a certain fruit bowl of ‘Peaches,’ whose velvety execution verges on a trompe l’oeil.” Painted the previous summer at the country house of Renoir’s patron Paul Berard, it is one of two still lifes that feature the same faïence jardinière; the other version also belongs to the Metropolitan Museum (56.218).
Reviewers of the 1882 Impressionist exhibition were dazzled by this “very appealing” still life of “a certain fruit bowl of ‘Peaches,’ whose velvety execution verges on a trompe l’oeil.” Painted the previous summer at the country house of Renoir’s patron Paul Berard, it is one of two still lifes that feature the same faïence jardinière; the other version also belongs to the Metropolitan Museum (56.218).
Auguste Renoir - Still Life with Peaches
