The painting The Cherry Hat, painted by the impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1884, and which belonged to the personal heritage of the Duchess of Alba, has been sold to a Spanish buyer for about 8.7 million euros. The work was exhibited this March at the booth of the American gallery M.S. Rau, during the TEFAF Art and Antiques Fair (Maastricht). The current owner arrived there through another antique dealer, Galerie Urban, from Paris, and the deal was closed. The canvas, which shows Aline Charigot, the painter’s future wife, is already in Spain after all the necessary documentation was checked and completed.
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“We do not have permission to give the client’s name, but he was very interested in having such a piece return to Spain due to its historical cultural relevance,” explains Bill Rau, owner of the gallery, open in New Orleans (United States), over the phone. Rau indicates that the painting “is already in the buyer’s home.” The gallerist does not know if it will be exhibited at some point, and assures that they are “delighted to have played a role in bringing this artwork back to where it belonged.”
Cayetana de Alba acquired the painting in the seventies at the Malborough Fine Art gallery in London. The canvas — measuring 55.25 by 44.45 centimeters — could be sold as it was a private asset of the duchess, who died in 2014 at the age of 88. It was at the Liria Palace for decades and was not part of the historical artistic collection integrated into the Casa de Alba Foundation. The foundation itself includes, among others, paintings by Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, and Titian, noted on its website. The trail of the Renoir was lost after the duchess passed away, but while it was exhibited in Maastricht, the M.S. Rau gallery indicated that they had acquired it upon her death. They then sold it to a private American collector, only to buy it back later. “The current sale price has not been lower than what we asked at TEFAF,” says Bill Rau now.
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Renoir painted Aline Charigot many times; she was his muse and later his wife. She was 25 when she posed for him in 1884. She married at 31, in 1890, the artist who was already 49 years old. In the painting, Charigot is in profile and wears a strong green hat adorned with cherries. Her dress is the same tone, though paler. “Renoir, unlike other impressionist colleagues, only married once, and the moment captured in the painting is both sweet and emotional,” Bill Rau told this newspaper during the TEFAF fair. “He was courting her, and it shows in the care he puts into it,” he added.
Renoir and Charigot had three children who were also artists: Pierre (actor), Jean (film director), and Claude (ceramist). Renoir was also the father of at least one other daughter from a relationship prior to his marriage. Aline Charigot, who appears in numerous paintings by her husband, died in 1915 at 56 years old. Four years before the painter, who died in 1919 at 78.
