Child with a Bird (Mademoiselle Fleury in Algerian Costume)

1882

Renoir painted this young girl during a visit to Algeria, then a French colony. The sitter, Mademoiselle Fleury, was probably French, but she is shown wearing what the artist described as an “Algerian costume.” While her dress and the setting are meant to evoke North Africa, the theme of young women holding birds was popular in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European paintings. Renoir exhibited this work as Child with a Bird, suggesting the image functioned both as a portrait and a genre scene.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	49 3/4 x 30 3/4 in. (126.4 x 78.1 cm) Frame: 56 1/4 x 37 3/16 x 3 7/16 in. (142.9 x 94.5 cm)
Object Number	1955.586
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On View

Image Caption

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Child with a Bird (Mademoiselle Fleury in Algerian Costume), 1882, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.586

Select Bibliography

Paris: Galerie Durand-Ruel.. P. A. Renoir.. April 1-25 1883.. New York: Durand-Ruel Gallery.. Paintings by the Master Impressionists.. April 8-10, 1929.. Paris: Palais des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Petit Palais).. Exposition du centenaire de la conquête de l'Algérie.. May-June 1930.. New York: Durand-Ruel Galleries.. Masterpieces by Pierre Auguste Renoir.. Feb. 8-March 5, 1932.. Paris: Musée de l'Orangerie.. Exposition Renoir 1841-1919.. 1933.. New York: Durand-Ruel Galleries.. Exhibition of Masterpieces by Renoir.. March 12-30, 1935.. Dallas (TX): Museum of Fine Arts.. The Centennial Exposition, Department of Fine Arts: Catalogue of the Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures, Graphic Arts.. June 6-November 29, 1936. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.. Exhibit Six: Impressionist Paintings.. Opened Sept. 18, 1956.. Wildenstein & Company. An Exhibition of Treasures from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts: Paintings, drawings & rare silver, for the benefit of the Committee to Rescue Italian Art, inc. (CRIA). Exhibition catalogue. New York: Wildenstein & Company, 1967. Art Institute of Chicago.. Paintings by Renoir. Feb. 3-April 1, 1973.. 1973.. Royal Academy of Arts, London. The Orientalists, Delacroix to Matisse: European Painters in North Africa and the Near East.. March 24-May 27, 1984. Entry by MaryAnne Stevens.. 1984. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C. The Orientalists, Delacroix to Matisse: The Allure of North Africa and the Near East. July 1-Oct. 28, 1984. Nagoya (Japan): Nagoya City Art Museum.. Renoir Retrospective. Nagoya City Art Museum, Oct. 15-Dec. 11, 1988; Hiroshima Museum of Art, Dec. 17, 1988-Feb. 12, 1989; Nara Prefectural Museum of Art, Feb. 18-April 9, 1989. 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 Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada. Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age. June 27-Sept. 14, 1997; Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 17, 1997-Jan. 4, 1998; Kimbell Art Museum, Feb. 8-April 26, 1998. (Exh. cat. by Colin Bailey et al.). National Gallery of Canada and Yale University Press, London.. Georges Lecomte.. "L'Oeuvre de Renoir.". L'art et les artistes, 5.. (April-Sept. 1907).. Vollard, Ambroise. Tableaux, pastels et dessins de Pierre-Auguste Renoir. 2 vols.. Paris: A. C. Mazo. 1918 (rprt. Paris, 1954).. Georges Lecomte.. "L'Oeuvre de Renoir.". L'Art et les artistes, n.s., vol. 1.. (1920).. Vollard, Ambroise. Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). Paris. 1920. Jacques-Emile Blanche.. "La technique de Renoir.". L'Amour de l'art, 2.. (1921).. Georges Rivière.. Renoir et ses amis.. Paris: Floury.. 1921.. Julius Meier-Graefe.. Renoir.. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann.. 1929.. Jean Alazard.. "Les peintres de l'Algerie au XIXe siècle.". Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6e pér., vol. 3.. (June 1930).. Jean Alazard.. L'Orient et la peinture française au XIX siècle d'Eugène Delacroix à Auguste Renoir.. Paris: Plon.. 1930.. Georges Grappe.. "Renoir.". L'art vivant.. July 1933.. Vollard, Ambroise. Renoir, An Intimate Record. New York: A. A. Knopf. 1925; 1934. Barnes, Albert C. and Violette de Mazia. The Art of Renoir. New York. 1935. Helen Comstock.. "The Connoisseur in America: Works by Renoir.". Connoisseur 95.. (May 1935).. Mary Morsell.. "Durand-Ruel Holds Fine Renoir Show.". Art News 33.. (March 16, 1935).. Jerome Klein.. Modern Masters from Manet to Gauguin.. New York.. 1938.. Michel Florisoone.. Renoir.. Paris.. 1937.. M. Berr de Turique.. Renoir.. Paris.. n.d.. R. H. Wilenski.. Modern French Painters.. New York.. 1940.. de Kooning, Elaine. "Renoir: as if by Magic." Art News 55 (Oct. 1956) :pp. 43-45, 66-67. Daulte, François. "Des Renoir et des chevaux." Connaissance des Arts 103 (September 1960): 26–38. R. H. Wilenski.. Modern French Painters, 4th ed.. London: Faber & Faber.. 1963.. Soichi Tominaga.. L'Art moderne du Monde, vol. 4, Renoir.. Tokyo: Zauho Press.. 1969.. 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. Elda Fezzi.. L'opera complete di Renoir, nel periodo impressionista 1869-1883.. Milan: Rizzoli.. 1972.. 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. Douglas Davis.. "Flesh and Form" (exh.rev.). Newsweek.. (Feb. 5, 1973).. Boime, Albert. Thomas Couture and the Eclectic Vision. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1980. 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. Nicholas Wadley.. Renoir.. London: John Calmann & King.. 1987.. Croutier, Alev Lytle. Harem: The World Behind the Veil. New York: Abbeville Press, 1989. Raffaele de Grada.. Renoir.. Milan: Mondadori.. 1989.. Raffaele de Grada.. Renoir.. New York: Arch Cape Press.. 1989.. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Néret, Gilles. Renoir: Painter of Happiness 18411919. Cologne: Taschen GmbH, 2001. François Daulte.. Auguste Renoir, Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Peint.. Paris: Durand-Ruel.. 1971.. Roger Benjamin. Oreintalist Aesthetics: Art, Colonialism, and French North Africa, 1880-1930. Berkeley: Univeristy of California Press. 2003:p. 44 figure 15. Benjamin, Roger. Renoir and Algeria. February 16-May 11, 2003; Dallas Museum of Art, June 8-August 31, 2003; Institut du Monde Arabe, October 6, 2003-January 18, 2004. Yale University Press and Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. 2003. Dumas, Ann and John Collins. Renoir's Women. The Columbus Museum of Art, September 23, 2005- January 15, 2006. London and New York: Merrell. 2005. Marshall, Traute M. Art Museums Plus: Cultural Excursions in New England. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2009. 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

The artist, sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, 22 May 1882; [Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1882–84, sold to David, 30 Dec. 1884];7 Charles Leroux, Paris (until 1888, his sale, Drouot, Paris, 27–28 Feb. 1888, no. 72, as La Fillette au faucon, sold to Durand-Ruel); [Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York, 1888–1909, sold to Thompson, 17 Apr. 1909]; Anna Thompson, New York (1909–28, sold to Durand-Ruel, 23 Apr. 1928); [Durand-Ruel, New York, 1928–37, sold to Clark, 6 May 1937, as Fillette au faucon, 1880]; Robert Sterling Clark (1937–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.