Richard Wagner

On the 15th of January, 1882, Renoir, travelling in Sicily, talked his way in to meet Richard Wagner, who was staying in Palermo and had, the day before, written the final notes of his opera Parsifal. The two men chatted over drinks for three quarters of an hour. Then Renoir asked for a sitting, and the next day the composer gave him exactly 35 minutes. It was not nearly enough. Wagner grew stiff and lost his good humour as the clock ran down, and what Renoir caught is fast and loose, a warm, slightly flushed face done almost on the run. Wagner, seeing the result, reportedly said he looked in it like a Protestant minister.