Aline Charigot

Aline Charigot (23 May 1859 – 27 June 1915) was a model for Auguste Renoir and later became his wife while continuing to model for him and then caring for him when he became disabled. She is pictured in many of his paintings over very many years, most famously in the early 1880s Luncheon of the Boating Party (where she is the woman on the left with the little dog), and Blonde Bather. They had three children together, two of whom, Pierre and Jean, went on to have distinguished careers in film, and the third, Claude, became a ceramic artist. Pierre had a son Claude who became the well-known cinematographer. She predeceased her elderly husband.

Aline Charigot
Renoir's portrait of Aline, about 1885
Born
Aline Victorine Charigot

(1859-05-23)23 May 1859[note 1]
Essoyes, Aube, France
Died27 June 1915(1915-06-27) (aged 56)[note 1]
Nice
Burial placeEssoyes
NationalityFrench
OccupationArtist's model, homemaker
Known forModel for Auguste Renoir
Spouse(s)
Auguste Renoir
​
(
m. 1890; her death 1915)
Children

Biography

Aline Victorine Charigot was born on 23 May 1859 to a farming family who cultivated grapes in Essoyes in the department of Aube, France.[note 1] When she was still a baby her father went to America and her mother moved away leaving Aline to be looked after by her aunt and uncle. She received little education. In 1874 she followed her mother to Montmartre, Paris, where she worked as a dressmaker. In about 1880 she met Auguste Renoir, when she was twenty and he nearly forty, and started modelling for him. She gave birth to their first son, Pierre, in 1885 and they married in Paris on 14 April 1890. They had two other sons, Jean born 1894 and Claude born 1901.[2][3][1]

From 1888 the couple spent progressively more time living in Essoyes, buying a house there in 1896.[4] In 1903 they moved to Cagnes-sur-Mer, building a new house there, Les Collettes, between 1905 and 1909.[3][5][6]

Pierre became a prominent stage and film actor; Jean became a famous film auteur, actor, and author; and Claude became a ceramic artist. Pierre had a son Claude (Aline and Auguste's grandson) who became the well-known cinematographer.[7]

After Claude's birth she developed diabetes but hid this from her husband. Pierre and Jean were drafted into the army in World War I and both were injured, Jean badly so. Aline died from a heart attack in Nice on 27 June 1915 after a hospital visit to Jean so predeceasing her elderly and disabled husband by four years.[note 1][2][3] She was buried in the south of France and then her remains were moved to Essoyes to be alongside her mother.[1][4]

Personality
By the Seashore, 1883[8]

Charigot had a love of the arts – she played the piano[note 2] and decorated her bedroom with paintings by Johan Jongkind. According to Ambroise Vollard, in 1907 she designed and managed the building of the Renoirs' new villa at Cagnes-sur-Mer. She took care of her children as they grew up and supervised their various nannies and maids, notable amongst whom was her cousin Gabrielle Renard. This became very important as Renoir's rheumatoid arthritis became severe as he aged. She was blonde and had become comfortably plump from quite a young age.[2][3][9] Renoir's biographer, Barbara White, describes the appearance of the model in the 1881 Blonde Bather as "rotund" and the 1885 and 1886 portraits being of a curvaceous woman.[10]

Modelling

Charigot modelled for Renoir's paintings, sculptures and drawings over a long period from 1880 to 1915. She only sat for three portraits by her husband but she appeared in many of his subject paintings.[2] In the 1880s she was Renoir's main model for the period in which he changed his manner of figure painting towards an "Ingresque" style.[11]

After her death Renoir made a terracotta sculpture of Aline as a maquette for a monument for her grave. Because of his arthritis he supervised the sculptor Richard Guino in doing the modelling, based in his 1885 painting of her nursing their first child (see below). The monument was never created but the work was used as a basis for a bronze bust placed by her grave.[12]

This list includes Renoir's main works of or including Aline Charigot. Some paintings have been done in several similar versions – in these cases a representative one has been chosen.

Notes
  1. Her dates of birth and death are variously reported. For her birth 23 May seems agreed and 1860 is usually reported whereas her gravestone says 1859. Her date of death is most commonly given as 27 June rather than 15 June but it seems agreed she died in 1915.[1]
  2. Apparently she was swept away by Emmanuel Chabrier's performance of España.
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References
  1. "Aline Victorine Charigot Renoir (1859 - 1915) - Find A Grave Memorial". www.findagrave.com. Archived from the original on 26 July 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  2. Collins, John (15 October 2013). Jiminez, Jill Berk (ed.). Dictionary of Artists' Models. Routledge. pp. 117–119. ISBN 978-1-135-95914-2. Archived from the original on 18 September 2017.
  3. "Lili". "Art Models and Renoir. Aline Charigot". www.artistsandart.org. Archived from the original on 19 June 2017. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
  4. Hulstrand, Janet (22 April 2017). "The Painter's Wife: Aline Charigot Renoir and the Renoir Home in Essoyes – France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France". francerevisited.com. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  5. Fezzi, Elda (1968). Renoir: The Life and Work of the Artist. Translated by Snell, Diana. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  6. "Renoir Museum, Cagnes-sur-Mer - AMB Cote d'Azur". AMB Cote d'Azur. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  7. Lees, Sarah, ed. (2012). "Blonde Bather 1881". Nineteenth-century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Volume two (PDF). Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300179651. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 September 2017.
  8. "Auguste Renoir: By the Seashore". The Met Museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Archived from the original on 14 February 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  9. Arbel, Nitay (9 October 2015). "The women of Renoir: models, muses, and partners: Aline Charigot". Spin, strangeness, and charm. Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
  10. White, Barbara Ehrlich (December 1969). "Renoir's Trip to Italy". The Art Bulletin. College Art Association. 51 (4): 333–351. doi:10.1080/00043079.1969.10790300. JSTOR 3048651.
  11. Perrin, Paul (June 2017). "Madame Renoir". Un Autre Renoir (PDF). Snoech Editions. ISBN 978-94-6161-393-6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 September 2017. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
  12. "Maternity: Madame Renoir and Son". www.nga.gov. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
  13. Herbert, Robert L. (1988). Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. Yale University Press. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-300-05083-7.
  14. Bailey, Colin B.; Parker, Robert McDonald (2007). Renoir landscapes, 1865-1883. National Gallery. ISBN 9781857093223.
  15. "Young Woman Reading an Illustrated Journal – Objects - RISD MUSEUM". risdmuseum.org. RISD Museum. Archived from the original on 11 July 2016. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  16. "Luncheon of the Boating Party". www.phillipscollection.org. Phillips Collection. Archived from the original on 6 June 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  17. "Boating Couple (said to be Aline Charigot and Renoir)". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 12 November 2016. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  18. "Blonde Bather". www.clarkart.edu. Clark Art -. Archived from the original on 15 June 2016. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  19. "Boating Couple (said to be Aline Charigot and Renoir)". mfa. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 12 November 2016. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  20. "Aline at the gate (girl in the garden), 1884 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir". www.wikiart.org. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  21. "Portrait of Madame Renoir". www.philamuseum.org. Philadelphia Museum of Art -. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  22. "In the Garden - Pierre-Auguste Renoir". State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Archived from the original on 1 April 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  23. "Pierre Auguste Renoir Maternity". Musée d'Orsay. Archived from the original on 9 July 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  24. "Mother and Child". www.clevelandart.org. Cleveland Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  25. "The Apple Seller". www.clevelandart.org. Cleveland Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 10 November 2016. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  26. Somervill, Barbara (September 2008). Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Mitchell Lane Publishers. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-61228-768-3. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017.
  27. "Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Madame Renoir and Bob - Auguste Renoir Gallery". www.renoirgallery.com. Renoir Gallery. Archived from the original on 29 November 2010. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
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