curatorial

Pierre-August Renoir’s Portrait of Paul Haviland made its public debut in July 1952, sixty-eight years after its creation, in the artist’s birthplace of Limoges. The occasion was a dual exhibition at the Musée Municipal dedicated to two Impressionists with childhood ties to Limoges: Renoir and Berthe Morisot (1841–1895).¹Morisot was born in Bourges but spent most of her first seven years in Limoges. Cindy Kang et al., Berthe Morisot: Woman Impressionist, exh. cat. (New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2018), 53, 187. Critics extolled “this magnificent exhibition” and marveled at the number of esteemed visitors present at the opening, including Andrée Haviland (1893–1985), a relative of the Nelson-Atkins sitter, and Julie Manet (1878–1966), Morisot’s daughter.²“Cette magnifique exposition”; Robert Margerit, “L’inauguration au Musée Municipal de l’exposition A. Renoir-Berthe Morisot,” Le Populaire du Centre, July 21, 1952, 4. Translations by Brigid M. Boyle unless otherwise noted. For a list of attendees, see the untitled article by A.-R. Soulier directly beneath Margerit’s own. Several commentators expressed admiration for the Paul Haviland portrait. Robert Margerit, a journalist for the Limoges daily Le Populaire au Centre, said of Renoir, “His three major themes were the sensual beauty of women, the innocent grace of children, [and] the pure brilliance of flowers,” citing “the luminous effigy of Paul Haviland as a child” among his examples.³“Ses trois grands thèmes furent la sensuelle beauté des femmes, la grâce innocente des enfants, le pur éclat des fleurs”; Margerit, “L’inauguration au Musée Municipal,” 4. One example given was “l’effigie lumineuse de Paul Haviland enfant.” Another local reporter was captivated by Haviland’s likeness the moment he entered the exhibition galleries: “The first paintings that I saw by Renoir struck me with their delicacy. The ‘Portrait of Paul Haviland as a child’ presents a whole range of whites, ochers, and pinks, blended to make the fairest child’s complexion one could imagine.”⁴“Les premières toiles que j’ai vues de Renoir m’ont frappé par leur gracilité. Le ‘Portrait de Paul Haviland enfant’ offre toute une gamme de blancs, d’ocres et de roses fondus pour donner le teint d’enfant le plus clair qu’on puisse rêver.” M. F., “Remarquable exposition Renoir et Berthe Morisot,” Écho du Centre, July 21, 1952. Even the Parisian press singled out the picture for praise. André Warnod, a special correspondent for Le Figaro, wrote that “Renoir appears here in all his radiance with famous works lent by the Louvre museum and others from private collections, such as . . . Paul Haviland.”⁵“Renoir apparaît là dans toute son rayonnement avec des œuvres célèbres prêtées par le musée du Louvre et d’autres provenant de collections particulières, comme . . . Paul Haviland”; André Warnod, “Renoir et Berthe Morizot [sic] à Limoges,” Le Figaro, September 18, 1952, 9.

This belated appreciation would surely have gratified Renoir, a devoted figure painter who produced more portraits than any other Impressionist.⁶Roberta Smith, “Renoir Portraits Show an Artist in Two Lights,” New York Times, October 22, 1997, E1. By one scholar’s tally, portraits accounted for 40 percent of Renoir’s output between 1864 and 1885.⁷Colin B. Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 5. In the early days of Renoir’s career, his sitters consisted mainly of family members and fellow pupils from Charles Gleyre’s (1806–1874) atelier. During the 1870s, Renoir began receiving portrait requests from avant-garde collectors like Victor Chocquet and Georges de Bellio, and by the 1880s he was fulfilling portrait commissions from wealthy businessmen and other elite clientele, a sign of his growing artistic acceptance.⁸Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits, 5–6. Even so, Renoir’s finances remained precarious in the mid-1880s. The collapse of an important French bank in 1882 caused a multiyear economic depression and hampered the ability of Renoir’s dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, to support him.⁹Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir: An Intimate Biography (London: Thames and Hudson, 2017), 115, 138. During this period of uncertainty, bourgeois portraiture provided Renoir with a vital source of income. It was not until 1888, when Durand-Ruel opened a gallery in New York and started selling Renoir’s work to eager American collectors, that the artist achieved real commercial success.¹⁰White, Renoir, 157. From that point forward, Renoir took on fewer commissioned portraits and focused on painting portraits of his immediate family.

The invitation to portray four-year-old Paul Haviland (1880–1950) came from the sitter’s father, Charles Haviland (1839–1921), and maternal grandfather, Philippe Burty (1830–1890). Born in New York but raised in Limoges, Charles Haviland was an industrialist who joined his father’s modest porcelain firm in 1865 and transformed it into the leading porcelain manufacturing company in France.¹¹For Charles Haviland’s biography, see Jean d’Albis, Haviland, trans. Laurens d’Albis (Paris: Dessain et Tolra, 1888); Nathalie Valière, Un Américain à Limoges: Charles Edward Haviland (1839–1921), porcelainier (Tulle, France: Éditions Lemouzi, 1992); and Nicole Maritch-Haviland and Catherine de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty: Portraits de famille (Limoges: Les Ardents Éditeurs, 2009), 91–104. The Maison Haviland is still active today; see their website, https://haviland.fr/. Described by a descendant as “hard, ambitious, and ruthless” in professional and personal affairs alike, Charles alienated many of his business partners and family members, eventually including his son Paul.¹²Their fractured relationship stemmed from Paul’s disinterest in the family business and Charles’s unabashed affair with a woman half his age, which caused Paul’s mother to commit suicide. See Maritch-Haviland and de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty, 243, 249. In the mid-1870s, Charles became fascinated by Japanese prints and Impressionism thanks to Burty, a collector and respected art critic whom he had met through the painter and printmaker Félix Bracquemond (1833–1914). Charles’s marriage to Burty’s teenage daughter Madeleine Burty (1860–1900) in 1877 cemented these interests and led him to acquire several works by Renoir, including Young Girl in a Boat (1877; private collection), Onions (1881; The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA), and Woman in Profile (1884; private collection).¹³For these works, see Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 5 vols. (Paris: Éditions Bernheim-Jeune, 2007–2014), nos. 214, 58, and 1121, pp. 1:258, 1:146–47, and 2:277. Woman in Profile recently changed hands at Sotheby’s, London: Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction, March 2, 2022, lot 130, https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/modern-contemporary-evening-auction/buste-de-femme-de-profil-2. Precisely what inspired Charles to have his son’s features immortalized on canvas is unknown, but, as Paul’s daughter Nicole Marić-Haviland (1923–2024) later put it, Charles and Burty “decided that Renoir alone had the talent to paint the portrait of this little prince.”¹⁴Maritch-Haviland and de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty, 245. The family must have been pleased with the result because Renoir’s portrait stayed in their collection for seven decades. During Paul Haviland’s final years, when he lived at a former priory in Yzeures-sur-Creuse, the picture occupied a place of pride in his bedroom.¹⁵Maritch-Haviland and de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty, 232.

Fig. 1. Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Burty Haviland, 1910, platinum/palladium print with applied coating, 9 11/16 x 7 11/16 in. (24.6 x 19.5 cm), The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Gift of Manfred Heiting, the Manfred Heiting Collection, 2004.673. Photograph © The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Ramon Perez

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Like his father, Paul Haviland was bilingual and lived parts of his life on both sides of the Atlantic.¹⁶The biographical summary that follows is indebted to Françoise Heilbrun and Quentin Bajac, Paul Burty Haviland (1880–1950), photographe, exh. cat. (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1996); and Maritch-Haviland and de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty, 77–90. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in June 1901, he spent the summer in France and then returned to the United States in September to oversee the New York branch of his father’s company, despite having little enthusiasm for the porcelain trade. Soon after taking up this post, Paul began frequenting events organized by the Camera Club of New York and practicing amateur photography—something he had done intermittently since at least 1896—with renewed zeal.¹⁷The Camera Club of New York is an artist-run nonprofit founded in 1884 as the Society of Amateur Photographers. It was renamed in 1897 following several splits and mergers. The organization is still active today. See their website, https://www.baxterst.org/. Paul’s passion for photography deepened in 1908 when he befriended the dealer and photographer Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864–1946). With Stieglitz’s encouragement, he started exhibiting his work, authoring articles for Stieglitz’s quarterly journal, Camera Work, and collaborating with the self-taught photographer Clarence White (1871–1925). Stieglitz produced several photos of Haviland during this halcyon period, including a half-length image of him in a suit and tie, aged thirty (Fig. 1). Haviland might have settled permanently in New York if not for his father, who in July 1915 demanded his return to France. After working for an armament factory in Limoges during the war, Haviland married the painter and decorator Suzanne Lalique (1891–1989) in December 1917. Their happy union produced two children and enabled Haviland to resign from his father’s company and work instead for his father-in-law, the famed jeweler and glassmaker René Lalique (1860–1945). Following the Wall Street crash of 1929, Haviland lost much of his wealth and in 1934 moved to Yzeures-sur-Creuse, where he practiced viticulture and lived off the profits until his death. In recent years, Haviland’s long-overlooked photographic oeuvre has received fresh attention thanks to several monographic exhibitions.¹⁸Exhibitions of note include Paul Burty Haviland (1880–1950), photographe, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, October 16, 1996–January 5, 1997 (for the catalogue, see n. 16); Paul Burty Haviland (1880–1950), Galerie Serge Aboukrat, Paris, October 26, 2004–January 15, 2005; and Paul-Burty Haviland, voyage et rêve, Galerie Antoine Laurentin, The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), Maastricht, March 15–24, 2013.

Fig. 2. André, Georges and Jeanne Hugo in Sailor Suits, 1878, albumen print mounted on cardstock, 4 1/16 x 2 3/8 in. (10.3 x 6.1 cm), Maison de Victor Hugo–Hauteville House, Paris, 3108. CCØ Paris Musées / Maisons de Victor Hugo Paris–Guernesey

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Renoir painted Paul Haviland long before the latter ever picked up a camera or yearned to escape his domineering father. He depicted him as a cherubic, well-mannered child resting his hands on a barely visible side table. Haviland wears a blue-and-white striped sailor suit, which was all the rage in fin-de-siècle children’s fashion. Evocative of a naval uniform, the style originated in England around 1865 as an expression of the country’s maritime prowess.¹⁹However, as Clare Rose has demonstrated, tailors and clothing manufacturers soon modified these garments in ways that “removed them from the naval prototype and altered their meaning.” See Clare Rose, “What Was Uniform about the Fin-de-Siècle Sailor Suit?” Journal of Design History 24, no. 2 (2011): 105–6. By the mid-1870s, juvenile sailor suits were available for purchase through both the bespoke clothing trade and ready-to-wear retailers like Donald Nicoll, which was based in London but had branches in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Paris.²⁰Rose, “What Was Uniform,” 108. The suits came in a range of cuts and fabrics (cotton, wool, serge, velvet, taffeta) and were paired with a variety of hats, from boaters to casquettes.²¹Françoise Tétart-Vittu, “La mode anglo-saxon,” in La mode et l’enfant, 1780 . . . 2000, ed. Catherine Join-Diéterle and Françoise Tétart-Vittu, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée Galliéra, 2001), 166–67. A casquette is a soft cap with a visor. Although most popular with boys aged ten and under, sailor suits were also worn by girls in the same age bracket. A photo taken in 1878 on the island of Guernsey captures Victor Hugo’s (1802–1885) ten-year-old grandson, Georges Hugo, and nine-year-old granddaughter, Jeanne Hugo, dressed in identical suits (Fig. 2). They pose in an indoor studio, but their outfits are better suited to outdoor play. Due to its charm and practicality, the sailor suit quickly spread to France, where it was known as a costume marin or costume en matelot.²²Both costume marin and costume en matelot translate as “sailor suit.” Marin is a general term for anyone who works at sea, including captains and first mates, while matelot is a narrower term for crew members who perform manual labor on a ship. For example, an 1889 poster for the Parisian department store Aux Buttes Chaumont advertises a juvenile sailor suit with red stockings, light blue trousers, a striped blouse with anchor motif, and a signature wide-collared jacket (Fig. 3). The child holds a toy sailboat, amplifying the nautical theme. Sailor suits remained in vogue for children until around 1900, after which other fashions superseded them.

Fig. 3. Jules Chéret (1836–1932), Aux Buttes Chaumont, 1889, color lithograph, 69 5/16 x 48 13/16 in. (176 x 124 cm), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, IFN-9010565

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Renoir’s oeuvre documents this remarkable longevity. Between 1880 and 1896, the artist completed six portraits and one multifigure scene of children sporting sailor suits. The earliest in this sequence are Portrait of Fernand Halphen (1880; Musée d’Orsay, Paris), a half-length image of a diamond merchant’s son wearing a sailor suit similar to Haviland’s own, and Portrait of Maurice Grimprel (1880; private collection), a full-length picture of the sitter on the grounds of his family’s estate in Chatou, attired in a costume marin.²³See Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné, nos. 569 and 568, p. 1:547. Three years later, Renoir painted nine-year-old Robert Nunès, son of Yport mayor Alfred Nunès, in an elegant, cobalt-blue sailor suit (Fig. 4).²⁴See Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné, no. 1260, p. 2:359. Embellished with gold embroidery and accessorized with a pom-pom beret, neckerchief, and pocket square, the ensemble highlights the boy’s elevated social status.

Fig. 4. Pierre-August Renoir, Sailor Boy (Portrait of Robert Nunès), 1883, oil on canvas, 51 9/16 x 31 1/2 in. (131 x 80 cm), Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, BF325

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In 1884–85, during the sailor suit’s heyday in France, Renoir produced three more commissioned likenesses featuring this garment: Portrait of Paul Haviland, Léon Goujon in a Sailor Suit (1885; Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge), and Pierre Goujon in a Sailor Suit (Fig. 5).²⁵See Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné, nos. 1261 and 1263, pp. 2:359–60 and 2:360; Léon Goujon is missing from the catalogue raisonné. Pierre Goujon recently came to market after sixty years in private hands: What Do You See? The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Part I, Freeman’s | Hindman, Philadelphia, February 27, 2024, lot 70, https://hindmanauctions.com/auctions/1800-what-do-you-see-the-collection-of-sidney-rothberg-part-i/lot/70. The latter two depict brothers, sons of French Senator Étienne Goujon, clothed in matching sailor suits with prominent anchor designs. Neither child occupies an obviously three-dimensional space; rather, the siblings are placed before flat, loosely brushed backgrounds reminiscent of the undefined setting in Portrait of Paul Haviland. Finally, to round out the series, Renoir twice portrayed his second-oldest son, Pierre Renoir, wearing a sailor suit.²⁶Renoir fathered five children, two with Lise Tréhot and three with Aline Charigot. They were Pierre Tréhot (b. 1868), Jeanne Tréhot (1870–1934), Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), Jean Renoir (1894–1979), and Claude Renoir (1901–1969). The first painting is a profile view of Pierre as a five-year-old (1890; private collection), and the second is a group portrait of Renoir’s wife, children, nursemaid, and neighbor, with eleven-year-old Pierre looking stylishly mature in a full-length costume marin (1896; Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia).²⁷See Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné, nos. 1282 and 2032, pp. 2:368 and 3:188–89. In both works, Pierre’s outfit signals his father’s hard-earned ascent from working class to haute bourgeoisiehaute bourgeoisie: French for ”the upper middle class“.

Fig. 5. Pierre-August Renoir, Pierre Goujon in a Sailor Suit, 1885, oil on canvas, 18 1/8 x 13 in. (46 x 33 cm), private collection. Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images

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As for Paul Haviland, his nautical garb and youthful innocence caught the eye of Nelson-Atkins director Lawrence Sickman, who orchestrated the picture’s purchase in 1955. It was the first Renoir to enter the museum’s collection, in any medium. In a letter to Harold Woodbury Parsons dated April 1, 1955, Sickman revealed one of his motives for pursuing the work: “Our most recent acquisition—made last week—is a perfectly charming Renoir portrait of one of the little Haviland children. It is almost exactly the size of the delightful Manet and will make a perfect pendant for it in the gallery.”²⁸Lawrence Sickman to Harold Woodbury Parsons, April 1, 1955, NAMA curatorial file. Parsons served as an art advisor to the Nelson-Atkins for many years. See MacKenzie Mallon, “Laying the Foundation: Harold Woodbury Parsons and the Making of an American Museum,” in Art Markets, Agents, and Collectors: Collecting Strategies in Europe and the United States, 1550–1950, ed. Susan Bracken and Adriana Turpin (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021), 306–15. Sickman was referring to Edouard Manet’s (1832–1883) portrait of six-year-old Lise Campineanu, acquired for the museum some two decades earlier. The works have indeed hung side by side for much of their shared history, as seen in a 2017 installation photo of the Bloch Galleries (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Mark McDonald, installation shot of Pierre-August Renoir’s Portrait of Paul Haviland and Edouard Manet’s Portrait of Lise Campineanu on view in the Bloch Galleries, February 24, 2017, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

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Hailed as a “luminous effigy” when first exhibited in Limoges, Portrait of Paul Haviland is an important commissioned work that Renoir completed during a time of economic precarity. It demonstrates his immense skill at painting likenesses, particularly of children, and offers valuable insight into fin-de-siècle fashion trends. Today it is one of thirteen Renoirs in the Nelson-Atkins collection, but it remains the museum’s sole portrait and only finished oil painting by this artist.

Notes

1. Morisot was born in Bourges but spent most of her first seven years in Limoges. Cindy Kang et al., Berthe Morisot: Woman Impressionist, exh. cat. (New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2018), 53, 187.

2. “Cette magnifique exposition”; Robert Margerit, “L’inauguration au Musée Municipal de l’exposition A. Renoir-Berthe Morisot,” Le Populaire du Centre, July 21, 1952, 4. Translations by Brigid M. Boyle unless otherwise noted. For a list of attendees, see the untitled article by A.-R. Soulier directly beneath Margerit’s own.

3. “Ses trois grands thèmes furent la sensuelle beauté des femmes, la grâce innocente des enfants, le pur éclat des fleurs”; Margerit, “L’inauguration au Musée Municipal,” 4. One example given was “l’effigie lumineuse de Paul Haviland enfant.”

4. “Les premières toiles que j’ai vues de Renoir m’ont frappé par leur gracilité. Le ‘Portrait de Paul Haviland enfant’ offre toute une gamme de blancs, d’ocres et de roses fondus pour donner le teint d’enfant le plus clair qu’on puisse rêver.” M. F., “Remarquable exposition Renoir et Berthe Morisot,” Écho du Centre, July 21, 1952.

5. “Renoir apparaît là dans toute son rayonnement avec des œuvres célèbres prêtées par le musée du Louvre et d’autres provenant de collections particulières, comme . . . Paul Haviland”; André Warnod, “Renoir et Berthe Morizot [sic] à Limoges,” Le Figaro, September 18, 1952, 9.

6. Roberta Smith, “Renoir Portraits Show an Artist in Two Lights,” New York Times, October 22, 1997, E1.

7. Colin B. Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 5.

8. Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits, 5–6.

9. Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir: An Intimate Biography (London: Thames and Hudson, 2017), 115, 138.

10. White, Renoir, 157.

11. For Charles Haviland’s biography, see Jean d’Albis, Haviland, trans. Laurens d’Albis (Paris: Dessain et Tolra, 1888); Nathalie Valière, Un Américain à Limoges: Charles Edward Haviland (1839–1921), porcelainier (Tulle, France: Éditions Lemouzi, 1992); and Nicole Maritch-Haviland and Catherine de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty: Portraits de famille (Limoges: Les Ardents Éditeurs, 2009), 91–104. The Maison Haviland is still active today; see their website, https://haviland.fr/.

12. Their fractured relationship stemmed from Paul’s disinterest in the family business and Charles’s unabashed affair with a woman half his age, which caused Paul’s mother to commit suicide. See Maritch-Haviland and de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty, 243, 249.

13. For these works, see Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 5 vols. (Paris: Éditions Bernheim-Jeune, 2007–2014), nos. 214, 58, and 1121, pp. 1:258, 1:146–47, and 2:277. Woman in Profile recently changed hands at Sotheby’s, London: Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction, March 2, 2022, lot 130, https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/modern-contemporary-evening-auction/buste-de-femme-de-profil-2.

14. Maritch-Haviland and de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty, 245.

15. Maritch-Haviland and de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty, 232.

16. The biographical summary that follows is indebted to Françoise Heilbrun and Quentin Bajac, Paul Burty Haviland (1880–1950), photographe, exh. cat. (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1996); and Maritch-Haviland and de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty, 77–90.

17. The Camera Club of New York is an artist-run nonprofit founded in 1884 as the Society of Amateur Photographers. It was renamed in 1897 following several splits and mergers. The organization is still active today. See their website, https://www.baxterst.org/.

18. Exhibitions of note include Paul Burty Haviland (1880–1950), photographe, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, October 16, 1996–January 5, 1997 (for the catalogue, see n. 16); Paul Burty Haviland (1880–1950), Galerie Serge Aboukrat, Paris, October 26, 2004–January 15, 2005; and Paul-Burty Haviland, voyage et rêve, Galerie Antoine Laurentin, The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), Maastricht, March 15–24, 2013.

19. However, as Clare Rose has demonstrated, tailors and clothing manufacturers soon modified these garments in ways that “removed them from the naval prototype and altered their meaning.” See Clare Rose, “What Was Uniform about the Fin-de-Siècle Sailor Suit?” Journal of Design History 24, no. 2 (2011): 105–6.

20. Rose, “What Was Uniform,” 108.

21. Françoise Tétart-Vittu, “La mode anglo-saxon,” in La mode et l’enfant, 1780 . . . 2000, ed. Catherine Join-Diéterle and Françoise Tétart-Vittu, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée Galliéra, 2001), 166–67. A casquette is a soft cap with a visor.

22. Both costume marin and costume en matelot translate as “sailor suit.” Marin is a general term for anyone who works at sea, including captains and first mates, while matelot is a narrower term for crew members who perform manual labor on a ship.

23. See Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné, nos. 569 and 568, p. 1:547.

24. See Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné, no. 1260, p. 2:359.

25. See Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné, nos. 1261 and 1263, pp. 2:359–60 and 2:360; Léon Goujon is missing from the catalogue raisonné. Pierre Goujon recently came to market after sixty years in private hands: What Do You See? The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Part I, Freeman’s | Hindman, Philadelphia, February 27, 2024, lot 70, https://hindmanauctions.com/auctions/1800-what-do-you-see-the-collection-of-sidney-rothberg-part-i/lot/70.

26. Renoir fathered five children, two with Lise Tréhot and three with Aline Charigot. They were Pierre Tréhot (b. 1868), Jeanne Tréhot (1870–1934), Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), Jean Renoir (1894–1979), and Claude Renoir (1901–1969).

27. See Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue raisonné, nos. 1282 and 2032, pp. 2:368 and 3:188–89.

28. Lawrence Sickman to Harold Woodbury Parsons, April 1, 1955, NAMA curatorial file. Parsons served as an art advisor to the Nelson-Atkins for many years. See MacKenzie Mallon, “Laying the Foundation: Harold Woodbury Parsons and the Making of an American Museum,” in Art Markets, Agents, and Collectors: Collecting Strategies in Europe and the United States, 1550–1950, ed. Susan Bracken and Adriana Turpin (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021), 306–15.

provenance

Commissioned from the artist by the sitter’s father, Charles Edouard Haviland (1839–1921), Limoges, France, and his maternal grandfather, Philippe Burty (1830–1890), Paris, 1884–1921;

By descent to Haviland’s son, the sitter, Paul Burty Haviland (1880–1950), Paris, 1921–1950;

Inherited by his widow, Suzanne Lalique-Haviland (1892–1989), Paris, 1950–no later than 1952 [1];

Given to her daughter, Nicole Marić-Haviland (formerly Blocq-Mascart, née Haviland, 1923–2024), Paris, probably by July 19, 1952–July 27, 1954 [2];

Purchased from Marić-Haviland by Wildenstein and Co., New York, by July 1954–March 22, 1955;

Purchased from Wildenstein by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1955.

Notes

[1] Precisely how Nicole Marić-Haviland acquired the work from her mother is not clear. According to correspondence from Jean d’Albis, the last member of the Haviland family to own the work was Suzanne Lalique and “when the work was sold it was exhibited at the 1952 exhibition.” See correspondence from Jean d’Albis, Haviland Porcelain, to Ralph T. Coe, Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, January 15, 1965, NAMA curatorial files. However, d’Albis must not have known about Marić-Haviland’s ownership. It is possible that Lalique-Haviland gave or sold the painting to her daughter after the 1952 exhibition Hommage à Berthe Morisot et à Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

[2] In 1954, the painting appeared at Chefs-d’œuvre de Renoir dans les collections particulières françaises: Exposition organisée au profit de la Ligue contre le Taudis, an exhibition at the Galerie Beaux-Arts, Paris. According to the exhibition catalogue, the painting was lent by “Mme Bloch-Mascard,” which was a misspelling of Blocq-Mascart. Nicole Haviland married Maxime Blocq-Mascart (1894–1965) in 1949, and they divorced in 1952. Sometime after 1954, Haviland remarried a Yugoslav national named Sreten Marić (1903–1992) and moved to Novi Sad, now part of modern-day Serbia. Some documents may spell Nicole Marić-Haviland’s name as the Latinized “Nicole Maritch-Haviland.” The pronunciation is the same, and both versions of the name seem to have been used in official sources. Thanks to Preston Hereford, curatorial intern, for his work on the provenance of this painting in 2019.

exhibitions

Hommage à Berthe Morisot et à Pierre Auguste Renoir, Musée Municipal, Limoges, France, July 19–October 10, 1952, no. 43, as Portrait de Paul Haviland enfant.

Chefs-d’œuvre de Renoir dans les collections particulières françaises: Exposition organisée au profit de la Ligue contre le Taudis, Galerie Beaux-Arts, Paris, June 10–27, 1954, no. 31, erroneously as Portrait de M. Georges Haviland.

New Acquisitions of 1955, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 8–29, 1956, no cat., erroneously as Portrait of Georges Haviland.

Renoir: Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York City, Inc., Wildenstein and Co., New York, April 8–May 10, 1958, no. 41, erroneously as Portrait of George [sic] Haviland.

Renoir: A Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the American Association of Museums in Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Renoir’s Death, Wildenstein and Co., New York, March 27–May 3, 1969, no. 56, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Paintings by Renoir, The Art Institute of Chicago, February 3–April 1, 1973, no. 48, as Paul Haviland.

Renoir 1985, Hayward Gallery, London, January 30–April 21, 1985; Grand Palais, Paris, May 15–August 2, 1985; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, October 9, 1985–January 6, 1986, no. 73, as Paul Haviland.

Impressionism: Selections from Five American Museums, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, November 4–December 31, 1989; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, January 27–March 25, 1990; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 21–June 17, 1990; The Saint Louis Art Museum, July 14–September 9, 1990; The Toledo Museum of Art, September 30–November 25, 1990, no. 74, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Renoir: Master Impressionist, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, July 30–September 11, 1994; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, September 18–October 30, 1994; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, November 5, 1994–January 15, 1995, no. 24, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 27–September 14, 1997; The Art Institute of Chicago, October 17, 1997–January 4, 1998; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX, February 8–April 26, 1998, no. 48, as Paul Haviland.

Renoir: From Outsider to Old Master 1870–1892, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo, February 10–April 15, 2001; Nagoya City Art Museum, April 21–June 24, 2001, no. 31, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Ritratti e figure: capolavori impressionisti, Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome, March 7–July 6, 2003, no. 32, as Ritratto di Paul Haviland.

Renoir: La maturità tra classico e moderno, Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome, March 8–June 29, 2008, no. 19, as Ritratto di Paul Haviland.

references

Hommage à Berthe Morisot et à Pierre-Auguste Renoir, exh. cat. (Limoges, France: Musée municipal, 1952), 36, (repro.), as Portrait de Paul Haviland enfant.

Robert Margerit, “L’inauguration au Musée Municipal de l’exposition A. Renoir-Berthe Morisot,” Le Populaire du Centre 46, no. 169 (July 21, 1952): 4.

M. F., “Remarquable exposition Renoir et Berthe Morisot,” Écho du Centre, no. 1351 (July 21, 1952): unpaginated.

André Warnod, “Renoir et Berthe Morizot [sic] à Limoges,” Le Figaro 126, no. 2496 (September 18, 1952): 9.

Chefs-d’œuvre de Renoir dans les collections particulières françaises, exh. cat. (Paris: Galerie Beaux-Arts, 1954), 55, erroneously as Portrait de M. Georges Haviland.

Bob Sanford, “Charts for Wartime Activity A Part of Her Varied Career: Miss Jari Havlena, Whose Works Are on Exhibit Here, Draws on Training as a Draftsman and Musician for Abstract Subjects,” Kansas City Star 75, no. 224 (April 29, 1955): 14, (repro.), erroneously as Portrait of Georges Haviland.

“New Acquisition,” Gallery News (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Art) 22, no. 8 (May 1955): unpaginated, (repro.), erroneously as Portrait of Georges Haviland.

“Major Acquisitions,” Gallery News (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Art) 23, no. 7 (April 1956): unpaginated, erroneously as Portrait of Georges Haviland.

Winifred Shields, “An Active and Rewarding 1955 is Reported by Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Star 76, no. 265 (June 8, 1956): 26.

Ross E. Taggart, “Kansas City Art,” Library Journal 82, no. 12 (June 15, 1957): 1596.

Renoir: Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York City, Inc., exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein, 1958), 55, (repro.), erroneously as Portrait of George [sic] Haviland.

“Art: Renoir Exhibition,” New York Times 107, no. 36,000 (April 9, 1958): 20, (repro.), erroneously as Portrait of George [sic] Haviland.

Dorothy Adlow, exhibition review of “Renoir: Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York City, Inc.,” Christian Science Monitor (April 26, 1958): 12, erroneously as Portrait of George [sic] Haviland.

Jan Dickerson, “Rare Gifts by Kansas Citians; New Purchases and Loans in Nelson Gallery Exhibit,” Kansas City Star 79, no. 81 (December 7, 1958): 109, erroneously as portrait of George [sic] Haviland.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 120, 261, (repro.), erroneously as Portrait of Georges Haviland.

Bill Graves, “Pissarro: Dean of Impressionist Painters,” Kansas City Times 123, no. 204 (December 8, 1960): 54.

Renoir: A Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the American Association of Museums, in Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Renoir’s Death, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein, 1969), unpaginated, (repro.), as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

François Daulte, “Vive Renoir,” Art News 68, no. 2 (April 1969): 30, (repro.), as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

François Daulte, Auguste Renoir: Catalogue Raisonné de l’œuvre peint, (Lausanne: Éditions Durand-Ruel, 1971), no. 454, pp. 1:49, 66, 414, as Portrait de Paul Haviland.

François Daulte, Renoir (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973), 95.

John Maxon, Paintings by Renoir, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1973), 26, (repro.), as Paul Haviland.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 160, (repro.), as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

J[ean] and L[aurent] d’Albis, “La céramique impressioniste: L’Atelier Haviland d’Auteuil et Son Influence,” L’Œil (February 1974): 47, (repro.), as Portrait de Paul Haviland, fils de Charles Haviland et Madeleine Burty.

François Daulte, Renoir (Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1982), 95.

Manet, 1832–1883, exh. cat. (Paris: Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1983), 416.

Anne Distel and et al., Renoir, exh. cat. (Britain: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1985), 23, 28n47, 118, 244, (repro.), as Paul Haviland.

Georges Charensol, “Renoir au Grand Palais,” Revue des Deux Mondes (July 1985): 187, (repro.) as Paul Haviland. 

Julie Manet, Journal, 1893–1899 (Paris: Editions Scala, 1987), 197.

Jean d’Albis, Haviland (Paris: Dessin et Tolra, 1988), 51, (repro.).

Marc S. Gerstein, Impressionism: Selections from Five American Museums, exh. cat. (New York: Hudson Hills, 1989), 12, 170, 202, (repro.), as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

“Art at the Nelson,” Kansas City Star 110, no. 189 (April 20, 1990): 36.

“Impressionistic Jazz,” Kansas City Star 110, no. 200 (May 1, 1990): 67.

Nathalie Valière, Un Américain à Limoges: Charles Edward Haviland (1839–1921), porcelainier (Tulle, France: Editions Lemouzi, 1992), 85.

Bernard Denvir, The Chronicle of Impressionism: An Intimate Diary of the Lives and World of the Great Artists (London: Thames and Hudson, 1993), 279.

John House, Renoir: Master Impressionist, exh. cat. (Sydney: Art Exhibitions Australia, 1994), 96–97, (repro.), as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Toledo Treasures: Selections from the Toledo Museum of Art, exh. cat. (New York: Hudson Hills, 1995), 21, (repro.).

Margaret Schmitz Rizzo, “At the Nelson this weekend, it won’t be your garden variety garden party,” Kansas City Star (June 13, 1996): 17.

Françoise Heilbrun and Quentin Bajac, Paul Burty Haviland (1880–1950), photographe, exh. cat. (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1996), 11–12, (repro.), as Portrait de Paul Haviland enfant.

Colin B. Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 206–08, 318–19, (repro.), as Paul Haviland.

Geoffrey Bent, “Charm’s Tenuous Truths,” North American Review 283, no. 3/4 (May/August 1998): 79–80.

“Behind the Scenes: Museum’s European Paintings in Demand,” Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (October 2000): 4, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Tim Janicke, “Wet and wonderful: The best place to spend part of a scorching Kansas City summer? A fountain,” Kansas City Star (July 29, 2001): 6.

Paul Hayes Tucker et al., Renoir: From Outsider to Old Master 1870–1892, exh. cat. (Nagoya: Chunichi Shimbun, 2001), 119–20, 252 (repro.), as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Maria Teresa Benedetti, Ritratti e figure: Capolavori impressionisti, exh. cat. (Milan: Skira, 2003), 35, 156–57, (repro.), as Ritratto di Paul Haviland.

Kathleen Adler, Renoir: la maturità tra classico e moderno, exh. cat. (Milan: Skira, 2008), 160–61, (repro.), as Ritratto di Paul Haviland.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 123, (repro.), as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Adrien Goetz, Comment regarder Renoir (Paris: Hazan, 2009), 204–05, (repro.), as Paul Haviland.

Nicole Maritch-Haviland and Catherine de Léobardy, Lalique-Haviland-Burty: portraits de famille (Limoges: Ardents, 2009), 232, 245.

Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Michel Dauberville, Renoir: Catalogue Raisonné des Tableaux, Pastels, Dessins et Aquarelles (Paris: Éditions Bernheim-Jeune, 2009), no. 1261, p. 2:359, (repro.), as Paul Haviland.

Anne Distel, Renoir, trans. John Goodman et al., (New York: Abbeville, 2010), 254, (repro.), as Paul Haviland.

Kenneth Chang, “How This Renoir Used to Look,” New York Times (April 20, 2014): https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/science/renoir-shows-his-true-colors.html, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Kenneth Chang, “Renoir Shows His True Colors,” New York Times (April 21, 2014): D2, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Emmanuelle Jardonnet, “Un mystère élucidé et une cure de jouvence virtuelle pour un tableau de Renoir,” Le Monde.fr (April 21, 2014): https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2014/04/21/un-mystere-elucide-et-une-cure-de-jouvence-virtuelle-pour-un-tableau-de-renoir_4404906_3246.html, as Portrait de Paul Haviland.

Kenneth Chang, “How a Renoir used to look,” Bulletin (April 23, 2014): https://www.bendbulletin.com/nation/2011286-151/how-a-renoir-used-to-look, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Kenneth Chang, “Science unveils how a Renoir used to look,” Seattle Times (April 26, 2014): https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/science-unveils-how-a-renoir-used-to-look/, as Portrait of Paul Haviland.

Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 64, (repro.), as Paul Haviland.

Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir: An Intimate Biography (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2017), 130, 374n299, as Paul Haviland.

Sylvie Patry, Renoir Father and Son: Painting and Cinema, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: The Barnes Foundation, 2018), 244, (repro.).