La Granja de las Collettes

Renoir bought this land at Cagnes, on the hills above the sea near Nice, in 1907, partly to stop the ancient olive trees on it from being felled. He had moved south for his health. By the time he painted the old farmhouse among those olives, his hands were so crippled by arthritis that his brushes had to be wedged between his fingers. The year was hard in other ways. The war was on, both his elder sons had been wounded at the front, and his wife Aline died in the summer of 1915. None of that shows here. The light is warm and the paint loose and easy, the old farmhouse sitting among the silver-grey olives he had bought the whole estate to save.