Pierre-Auguste Renoir LA CABARET ET LE MERE ANTHONY Ambroise Vollard Estate Etching

This is a Pierre-Auguste Renoir hand colored etching titled “LA CABARET ET LE MERE ANTHONY”.

Pulled from the original master copper plate in Paris. Published in December of 1919. From the Ambroise Vollard Estate Collection.

This fine art multiple was printed by hand in Paris, France on arches paper. Has a embossed stamp from the Vollard Estate.

Vibrant color image measures 10″ x 7″. With border measures 20″ x 17″. In excellent condition, comes unframed.

Comes with a signed certificate of authenticity from the Vollard Estate.

In 1894 Renoir met Ambroise Vollard who played an important part in the production of Renoir’s lithographs and etchings. Renoir preferred lithography to engraving on copper, and Vollard encouraged him to keep creating original graphic works.

THE STORY

In 1919, Ambroise Vollard published a book on the life and work of Renoir. “La Vie et” Oeuvre de Pierre Auguste Renoir. At the turn of the century Vollard was the most renowned art dealer of his time. He discovered such artists as Cézanne, Matisse, and Vlaminck just to name a few. The book was printed at a limited edition of 1000; Copper Plates used for the book’s engravings were left forgotten in the basement of a country house just outside Paris, France. After WWII, only six copies of the book remained in existence from the original 1000, which copies are now priceless. In 1986, long after the death of Vollard and Renoir, Vollard’s heirs discovered the copper plates and the result has now been made available. However, most of these etchings were never printed or published until now.

In 1919, “La Vie et l’Oeuvre de Pierre Auguste Renoir” (for which the Renoir copper plates were created and engravings originated) was not only and extraordinarily beautiful edition filled with more than fifty etchings from paintings and drawings of Renoir’s art work, but the text, in its content is an amazing treasure in itself. In essence, the book is a one on one intimate interview between Renoir’s and Vollard, (270 pages long), which interview took place around 1918. The historical value of Renoir’s testimony is unequaled. The text covers a wide range of subjects: details of his personal life, his humble beginnings as a porcelain painter at age fourteen, his struggle as an artist, his views on his subjects, his piers, anecdotes on his paintings, ect. Renoir in his own words, “the man, the artist, it is a new found treasure for the world.

Ambroise Vollard’s Estate now owns two of the last six remaining copies of the original edition and is currently planning the re-edition of this amazing book in a contemporary format while keeping it’s original published layout. It will no doubt be the new: bible” on Renoir for art lovers around the world.