Pierre-Auguste Renoir
French, 1841–1919
Apples in a Dish
1883
Ripe red and green apples fill a large bowl, its brilliant blue color and white edges serving as the focus of the composition. While most of the fruit is fresh and ready to eat, the apple in the foreground shows unmistakable signs of decay, a detail uncharacteristic of the artist. This was the last painting by Renoir acquired by the Clarks, just four years before they opened their museum in Williamstown.
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 21 5/16 x 25 11/16 in. (54.1 x 65.3 cm) Frame: 32 5/8 x 36 3/4 in. (82.9 x 93.3 cm) |
| Object Number | 1955.599 |
| Acquisition | Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955 |
| Status | On View |
Image Caption
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Apples in a Dish, 1883, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.599
Bibliography
Conforti, Michael, et al. The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven: distributed by Yale University Press, 2006. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago.. The Mrs. L. L. Coburn Collection. Modern Paintings and Water Colors.. April 6-Oct. 9, 1932.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.. Exhibit Six: Impressionist Paintings.. Opened Sept. 18, 1956.. Kern, Steven, et al. A Passion for Renoir: Sterling and Francine Clark Collect, 19161951. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1996 Vollard, Ambroise. Renoir, An Intimate Record. New York: A. A. Knopf. 1925; 1934. Cambridge (MA): Fogg Art Museum.. Bulletin.. vol. 4.. (Nov. 1934).. Barnes, Albert C. and Violette de Mazia. The Art of Renoir. New York. 1935. Edward Alden Jewell.. French Impressionists and Their Contemporaries Represented in American Collections.. New York: Hyperion Press.. 1944.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Elda Fezzi.. L'opera complete di Renoir, nel periodo impressionista 1869-1883.. Milan: Rizzoli.. 1972.. René Huyghe.. La peinture française au XIXe: Le relève du réel.. Paris: Flammarion.. 1974.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011.
EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY
Provenance
The artist, sold to Durand-Ruel, 9 Sept. 1885, as Nature morte pommes; [Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1885–1926, sold to Coburn, 30 Mar. 1926]; Annie Swan Coburn, Chicago (1926–d. 1932, bequeathed to the Fogg); Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass. (1934–51, sold to Levy, 11 Apr. 1951); [John Levy Galleries, New York, in 1951, sold to Knoedler]; [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 19 May 1951]; Robert Sterling Clark (1951–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.
