Bridge at Chatou

c. 1875

Renoir placed his easel on lush pastoral land in Chatou, a village about nine miles west of Paris, yet chose to paint the town’s nondescript buildings rather than the surrounding landscape. The focus of the canvas is the brilliant blue of the river and the contrasting yellow of the sunlit bridge, its reflection blurred by the choppy surface of the suburban waterway.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	20 1/8 x 25 3/4 in. (51.1 x 65.4 cm) Frame: 28 1/2 x 34 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. (72.4 x 87.6 x 11.4 cm)
Object Number	1955.591
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On View

Image Caption

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bridge at Chatou, c. 1875, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.591

Select Bibliography

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.. Exhibit Six: Impressionist Paintings.. Opened Sept. 18, 1956.. Art Institute of Chicago.. Paintings by Renoir. Feb. 3-April 1, 1973.. 1973.. Tübingen. Kunsthalle Tübingen.. Renoir: Paintings 1860-1917. Jan. 20-May 27, 1996. Exh.cat. by Götz Adriani.. Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag.. 1996.. 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 John Rewald.. The History of Impressionism.. New York: Museum of Modern Art.. 1961, 1973.. 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. Remus Nicolesco.. Georges de Bellio, L'Ami des Impressionnnistes.. 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.. Kimio Nakayama.. Renoir, Rising Sun Series: Art of the World, vol. 6.. Tokyo: Zauho Press.. 1978.. Kimio Nakayama.. Renoir, Rising Sun Series: Art of the World, vol. 6.. Tokyo: Zauho Press.. 1978.. . Renoir. Great Masters of Modern Art. 9. Tokyo: Kodansha. 1979. 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. Claud Vacant.. Routes et points en Yvelines du XVIIe au XIXe siècle.. Paris: Presses de l'école nationale des ponts et chausées.. 1988.. Distel, Anne. Les connectionneurs des impressionnistes: Amateurs et marchands. Dudingen/Guin (Switzerland): Editions Trio. 1989. Bridgestone Museum of Art. Renoir: From Outsider to Old Master 1870-1892. Exhibition catalogue. Nagoya: The Chunichi Shimbun, 2001. Bailey, Colin B. and Christopher Riopelle ed. Renoir's Landscape 1861-1883. The National Gallery, London, February 21- May 20, 2007; National Gallery of Canada, June 8- September 9, 2007; Philadelphia Museum of Art, September 30, 2007- January 6, 2008. London: National Gallery Company Limited. 2007. 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.

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Provenance

Ernest Hoschedé, Paris, probably bought from the artist (until 1878, his sale, Drouot, Paris, 6 June 1878, no. 74, sold to de Bellio); Georges de Bellio, Paris (1878–d. 1894); Victorine and Eugène Donop de Monchy, Paris, de Bellio’s daughter and son-in-law, by descent (from 1894); Georges Hoentschel, Paris (d. 1915); [Knoedler, Paris, sold to Clark, 13 Oct. 1925]; Robert Sterling Clark (1925–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.