Madame Clémentine Valensi Stora (L'Algérienne) is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, completed in 1870. It depicts a young Jewish woman, Rebecca Clémentine Stora, in Algerian costume and is untypical of Renoir's work, leading to debate about the place of the painting within his oeuvre. Renoir and Stora both later repudiated the work.
Background
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was closely associated with the
Women of Algiers in their Apartment (1834, Louvre) in the second. Renoir did not travel abroad until 1881 when he visited Algeria.[2]
Style
L'Algérienne has been described by
Colin Bailey as "proto-Impressionist". The broad brush strokes and exuberant use of colour represent a high point in Renoir's temporary rejection of the realism of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet in favour of the influence of his hero Delacroix.[3] Later, when his style had changed considerably, Renoir repudiated the work, complaining in connection with it, "la manie des amateurs de toujours demander ma manière ancienne".[4]
Subject
The painting depicts a young
boulevard Hausmann. The tourist trade with French Algeria created a strong market for Algerian and North African themed material in France and the business claimed to be suppliers to the Government General of Algeria.[6]
Research using contemporary photographs has shown that the costume worn by Clémentine in the picture is authentic for a
Exposition Universelle of 1867, and which depicts a woman in a similar costume.[3] The costume was not, however, conventional for 1870s Paris and it is unclear whether the choice of an Algerian theme was an attempt at ethnic authenticity by Renoir or a demand of the Storas. Clémentine's pursed expression seems to indicate that she is not entirely happy with something. If it was the costume, that did not stop her depiction in similar form in 1877 by Brochart. The authenticity of the clothes and the fact that the painting is a portrait of a named living person rules out the idea that the picture is a work of oriental fantasy and places it more in the realm of conventional portraiture
, however, questions remain about what Renoir and the Storas were trying to achieve in the work.
Clémentine was depicted twice more in art, in an oil painting by
pastel drawing, also by Brochart, from around 1880. In the first she is shown with her daughter Semha Lucie Stora, the third of Clémentine's four children, in an oriental fantasy scene on a terrace overlooking an imaginary city. Her husband's specialism in oriental carpets is referenced by the carpet in the picture. That painting was sold by Christie's in 2007.[7] In the second depiction, Clémentine is shown in conventional European dress for a woman of her class with no evidence of her Jewish Algerian roots. Unlike L'Algérienne, both of the Brochart portraits remained in the Stora family until after 2000.[6]
Constant-Joseph Brochart, Clémentine Stora and her Daughter Lucie, c. 1877. Oil on canvas. Location unknown.
Constant-Joseph Brochart, Clémentine Stora, c. 1880. Pastel. Private collection, New York.
Provenance
Clémentine Stora disliked the painting, describing it as "horrible".
Paul Helleu for the modest sum of 300 francs despite the high prices then being realised for Renoir's work.[8] Helleu in turn sold it to Claude Monet sometime before 1906. It was shown at the Orientalistes Francais exhibition in Paris in 1906 by Monet. It was inherited by Michael Monet in 1926 and was at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, by 1938 followed by Reid and Lefevre and William Hallsborough Ltd., London, by 1952. The last private owner was Prentice Cobb Hale of San Francisco.[4]
Today, the painting is part of the collection of the
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the gift of Mr and Mrs Prentice Cobb Hale in honour of Thomas Carr Howe Jr., 1966.[9]
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Constant-Joseph Brochart, Clémentine Stora and her Daughter Lucie, c. 1877. Oil on canvas. Location unknown.
Constant-Joseph Brochart, Clémentine Stora, c. 1880. Pastel. Private collection, New York.
Media related to Clémentine Stora at Wikimedia Commons