Versailles

Around 1900, Versailles was coming back into fashion. The palace had spent decades as a half-empty history museum, too closely tied to the monarchy for the young Republic, and Parisian society began to return to its rooms and gardens only after Pierre de Nolhac became its curator in 1892. This is the Versailles Renoir painted, in autumn. The Met identifies the view as the north side of the château, with chestnut trees in their seasonal colours framing an opening onto flowerbeds and a fountain. Sculpture is everywhere here, from the pale statues along the beds to the dark bronze figure on its pedestal at the right edge. The date is uncertain, somewhere between 1900 and 1905, when Renoir is said to have rented a summer house in nearby Saint-Cloud. The dealer Ambroise Vollard sold the canvas to the banker Robert Lehman in 1929, and it came to the Met with his collection in 1975.