The Large Bather

Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841 - 1919)

Date1917

MediumBronze

DimensionsOverall: 48 1/2 × 51 × 28 inches (123.19 × 129.54 × 71.12 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: the Elmer F. Pierson Foundation

Object numberF77-57

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Kansas City Sculpture Park 10^th Anniversary exhibition, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 3, 1999-May 13, 2000, no. 103, as The Large Bather.

Gallery Label

Renoir is famous as one of the great Impressionist painters, but he is less well known as a sculptor. Late in life, when he was crippled with arthritis, he produced some 24 sculptures including this impressive work. Also known as The Washerwoman, The Large Bather represents a nude lifting her laundry from the water. The rugged, bronze surfaces, in contrast to the polish of academic sculpture, can be related to the “sketchiness” of Impressionism. Due to his disability, the sculpture was made under Renoir’s strict direction by his talented assistant, Richard Guino.

Provenance

Guino family, France;

With Galerie Andrée Stassart, Liège, Belgium, by January-November 1977 [1];

Purchased from Galerie Andrée Stassart, through the generosity of the Elmer Pierson Foundation, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1977.

NOTES:

[1] Andrée Stassart first offered the sculpture to Ralph T. Coe, Nelson-Atkins Assistant Director, via a postcard sent in or prior to January 1977, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

Published References

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 129.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 218.

Jennifer A. Thompson, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2019), 199.

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