Pesche

By 1881 Renoir had stopped showing with the Impressionist group and was sending work to the official Salon instead, on the argument that Paris buyers looked there. What carried him through those years were private houses. He spent long stretches at Wargemont, the chateau near Dieppe belonging to Paul Berard, a diplomat turned banker who commissioned portraits of his children and put the painter up for whole summers. This bowl of peaches was done there. The museum's own note points out the sleight of hand in it, that the bowl is seen from the side while the table is seen from above, with one peach rolled clear of the others. The picture passed from the dealer Ambroise Vollard to Paul Guillaume, and the French state bought it in 1963 from Jean Walter's widow.