Coco (The artist's youngest son, Claude)

Auguste Renoir
France
1841 – 1919

Coco (The artist's youngest son, Claude)
c 1905
oil on canvas
Currently on display, Gallery 15
Place made
Essoyes, France
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
41.4 x 32.2 cm
60.0 x 52.0 x 6.5 cm (frame)
Credit line
Bequest of Lady Ursula Hayward 1983
Accession number
8315P20
Signature and date
Not signed. Not dated.
Provenance
Edward Speelman before 1958, collection Lady Ursula Hayward by 1958, Carrick Hill, Springfield; work left to AGSA in Lady Ursula's will, to come into AGSA's possession on the death of Sir Edward Hayward, bequest finalised 1983.
Media category
Painting
Collection area
European paintings

  • Known in the family as Coco, Claude was the youngest of Auguste Renoir’s three sons. This intimate portrait displays the relaxed technique and open brushwork characteristic of the French Impressionist artist’s later years. The soft light and
    warm colours impart a mood of domestic tenderness appropriate to the subject.

    Renoir was enjoying great success by this stage in his career, and this painting reflects the contentment he derived from his comfortable family life in Essoyes, southeast of Paris. According to late nineteenth-century custom, boys’ hair was not cut before they reached the age of six. Coco’s hair was vividly red, and the elderly Renoir painted it frequently during this period.

    Tony Magnusson, Curator of European Art, 2016–18


  • COLOURS OF IMPRESSIONISM: Masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay.

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 29 March 2018 – 29 July 2018
  • [Book] AGSA 500.