Provenance
Commissioned by the sitter's father, Sénateur Étienne Goujon [Etienne Devilliers], Paris; by inheritance to E. Chapuis, Paris, the husband of the sitter; (Chapuis sale, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 4 March 1920, no. 208, withdrawn); sold 1920 by Chapuis to (Paul Rosenberg and Co., London, New York and Paris); sold to Marquis de Rochecouste, Paris; sold to (Bernheim-Jeune, Paris);[1] on joint account 1928/1929 with (M. Knoedler & Co., London, New York and Paris); sold December 1929 to (Bernheim-Jeune, Paris);[2] by whom sold to (Galerie Thannhauser, Berlin); sold before 1931 to Max Silberberg [d. 1944], Breslau;[3] (his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 9 June 1932, no. 29); purchased by Chester Dale [1882-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.
[1]See letter from Paul Rosenberg to Chester Dale, dated 5 August 1932, in NGA curatorial files, in which the Marquis' name is spelled Rochegouste. According to a letter from François Daulte dated 30 January 1965, in NGA curatorial files, the name is correctly spelled Rochecouste.
[2]See notes of David Rust's conversation with Knoedler & Co., dated 15 October 1964, in NGA curatorial files.
[3]Published in "Die Sammlung Max Silberberg," _Kunst und Kunstler_, October 1931, p. 12.
Accession Number
1963.10.58
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 125.7 x 76.6 cm (49 1/2 x 30 3/16 in.) | framed: 148 x 100.6 cm (58 1/4 x 39 5/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Chester Dale Collection
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
Girl with a Hoop, painted in 1885, depicts a young girl standing in a garden, holding a hoop and stick, about to roll the hoop across the lawn. The painting belongs to Renoir's most productive period, when he had achieved financial success and was able to paint the subjects he loved most: children, gardens, and the simple pleasures of domestic life.
Renoir painted children throughout his career, and his child portraits are among his most beloved works. Unlike many painters of children, who sentimentalize or idealize their subjects, Renoir painted children as physical beings: sturdy, energetic, and fully alive. His Girl with a Hoop is not a cherub or an angel but a real child, her posture one of impatient readiness, about to launch her hoop into the garden.
The painting exemplifies Renoir's ability to combine figure painting with landscape. The garden setting, rendered in rapid, broken strokes of green and blue, surrounds the figure without competing with it, creating a harmony between the child and her environment that embodies Renoir's ideal of art as a celebration of the beauty of life.
Cultural Impact
Renoir's child portraits established the image of the healthy, happy child as a major subject in French painting and influenced every subsequent painter who depicted childhood with warmth rather than sentimentality. His children are not symbols of innocence but living beings - energetic, physical, and as various as the adults who populate his portraits.
Why It Matters
Girl with a Hoop captures Renoir at his most joyous: a painter who has found in a child's game all the beauty that other artists seek in grander subjects. The hoop, the garden, and the girl's expectant stance create an image of happiness so direct and so physical that it seems to have been painted by the child herself.
