Bois de la Chaise (Noirmoutier)

In September 1892 Renoir crossed to Noirmoutier, an island off France's Atlantic coast just south of the mouth of the Loire. The Bois de la Chaise, the pine wood at its northern tip, was a quiet resort then, with villas and chalets that a guidebook of the day said drew aristocrats rather than fashionable society. He stayed at the island's main hotel, the Hôtel du Lion d'Or, and afterwards wrote to the painter Berthe Morisot that the place was superb and completely southern, but much too far away.

In the same letter he admitted he could no longer plant himself out of doors like a street entertainer. Curators at the Barnes think this canvas was most likely worked up in the studio, perhaps back in Paris, from looser views painted on the spot, one of which is now in a collection in Winterthur, Switzerland. That would explain why the curling branches in front read almost as a decorative pattern, while the small figures under the trees and the white sails out at sea are only lightly suggested.