Pierre-Auguste Renoir | L'Estaque, 1885-1890

"L'Estaque" is an oil on canvas, 18 3/8 x 21 7/8 inches, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), created in 1885-1890.

It is part of the collection of the Portland Museum of Art.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir passed through Provence on his return trip to France from Italy in January 1882, stopping at the fishing village of L'Estaque on the Mediterranean coast - close to Marseilles in the South of France, where Cézanne had painted regularly since the 1860s.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | L'Estaque, 1885-1890 | Portland Museum of Art

Despite his recent commercial success, Renoir, at the age of forty, was still plagued by the same sort of self-doubt that tortured Cézanne throughout his life.

However, Renoir found inspiration in the Mediterranean landscape.

Writing to Marguerite Charpentier, to explain an extension to his stay with Cézanne, Renoir enthused:

'I am in the process of learning a lot, and the longer I take, the better it will be...

I have perpetual sunshine and I can scrape off and begin again as much as I like.

This is the only way to learn' (quoted in J. Rewald, The History of Impressionism, New York, 1973, p. 463).

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Rocky Crags at L'Estaque, 1882 | Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Writing to another of his patrons, Paul-Antoine Berard, Renoir rhapsodised further on the charms of the Provencal landscape:

'How beautiful it is! It's certainly the most beautiful place in the world, and not yet inhabited...

There are only some fishermen and the mountains... so there are no walls, no properties or few... here I have the true countryside at my doorstep'. (quoted in Renoir, exh. cat., London, 1985, p. 233).

Paul Cézanne | Vue sur l'Estaque, 1882-1883 | Christie's

Paul Cézanne | The Bay of Marseille, Seen from L'Estaque, 1885 | Art Institute of Chicago