Common painting or treasure?

A woman claims to have an authentic Renoir... But authorities deny it!

What side are you on, family history or the Wildenstein Art Institution?

"Renoir" Bassin d'Argenteuil 1875

So, I was watching a documentary show on Netflix called Fake or Fortune and I found this very interesting story about a painting in the Picton Castle located in England, where there is a so claimed #Renoir painting "Bassin d'Argenteuil" 1875. And a woman called Nicky Phillips contacted the BBC Fake or Fortune team to prove that it is real.

Nicky’s aunt Gwen tells that Pierre-August Renoir gifted this painting to Claude Monet, whom he met in 1850 while studying and became close friends in addition to even painting together. Then, when Monet died, his stepdaughter, Blanche, stayed in his house in Giverny taking care of the house and the collection.

When taken to an expert, Anthea Callen she said:

“Rivalry. I think that’s what it comes down to.”

She is an emeritus professor of the Australian National University and specialist in plain air paintings in France, and she said that as a response to why the painting isn’t accepted as a Renoir by the Wildenstein Art Institution. 

The start of the journey...

Philip Mould and Fiona Bruce were contacted to solve the mystery, they started by comparing the physical interpretation of the artwork. Renoir, in comparison to Monet focuses on the scene and doesn’t give a drastic contrast from background to foreground, on the other hand, Monet is centered on the main object and jumps to the background, creating layers to his paintings. This is one of the reasons why the piece could be a fake, the layers are distinguished, and the attention is focused on the main object, a boat. However, at the time this painting was created, Renoir was depressed due to the death of Camille Doncieux, Monet’s wife, who was also featured in various paintings of Renoir. During that time, he uses dimension, making it a distinctive quality to his depressed era. We can see this in “Sunrise” by Renoir.

Another “critical” factor that the Wildenstein claimed to have needed was a signature. The Bassin d’Argenteuil doesn´t have a signature, however, Phillip noticed that Renoir never signed an unfinished piece or a sketch. “because it’s so thinly painted, it has a real feel of being unresolved, unfinished, but that may be intentional... I wouldn’t necessarily assume that this is anything more than a study”, said Anthea Callen. This leads us to believe that this art work isn’t a painting at all, but probably just a start of trying new techniques. 

The next step is chemically proving that the pigments used in Bassin d’Argenteuil, matched Renoir’s, this was able to be proven as Philip got hold of Renoir’s pigment list used from 1871 to 1879, written by Renoir himself. When scanning the painting, the elements found correctly matched the list provided. So, more evidence was accumulated. 

A step-back was the discovery of a list containing the paintings in Monet’s collection. Fiona went with Nicky to look for her painting, and overwhelmingly, it wasn’t found any record of it. Later, we would find out that there are some authentic paintings missing from the list. Another theory was that the painting was under Blanche’s name and not under Monet’s, as “Regatta á Argenteuil” by Renoir was given to her and Nicky’s painting was as well. For more than this theory could be correct, there is no documentary evidence to support it.  

The hope for Nicky’s painting was vanishing, and there was only one more thing that they could do, pass an infrared laser through the painting to see if there was something underneath the canvas. The first scan showed a slight marking, but nothing concrete. They flipped the painting and ran thescan again, to find an 1870’s canvas distributor stamp. This proved that the canvas used by the painter matched the dates and there was not a way to fake it. 

With every piece of evidence gathered by Philip and Fiona, Nicky went to Wildenstein, handed the painting and the data for re-attribution. One-week after the verdict was sent through a letter that read:

["The Renoir Committee at the Wildenstein Institute will not accept the painting as authentic” ...”There are three reasons for this decision. There is no evidence to support the provenance of the painting, there is no documentation to prove this work is by Renoir. The painting it not signed. The painting is weak”.]

Debate conclusion:

Each reader and viewer of the present evidence will form an opinion regarding the debate if the painting should’ve been attributed to the Rodin collection, but for now, #corruption, #greed and #rivalry will continue to cause controversy amongst art houses, painters and public, continuing to damage great pieces of art such as Bassin d’Argenteuil

#artdebate #fakeorfortune #BBC #news