(Limoges 1841–1919 Cagnes near Nice)
Arbre à Cagnes, au loin la mer, 1896, monogrammed,
oil on canvas applied on board, 14.5 x 14.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Renoir heirs
Galerie Vildrac, Paris (label on the reverse)
Sotheby’s London, 17 October 1990, lot 14
Monaco Fine Art, Montecarlo (label on the reverse)
Private Collection, Turin
Cambi Casa d’Aste, 2 April 2019, lot 72
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Rome, Museo del Risorgimento, Palazzo del Vittoriano, Renoir. Dall’Italia alla Costa Azzurra, 1881–1919, 31 March–25 July 1999, exh. cat. p. 97 with ill.

Literature:
Le Bulletin de la vie artistique, Bernheim-Jeune, 1 February 1921,
p. 83
A. André, L’Atelier de Renoir, Bernheim-Jeune, Paris 1931, vol. I,
no. 165, p. 54
G.-P. and M. Dauberville, Renoir. Catalogue Raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles. 1895 – 1902, Bernheim-Jeune, Paris 2010, Vol. III, p. 134, no. 1919

Although Renoir is often considered first and foremost a f​igure painter, landscape represents a major component of his œuvre and it was in this genre ‘that he often felt able to parade the most informal and improvisatory aspects of his art’. (Renoir Landscapes 1865–1883,
National Gallery, London 2007, p. 16).
Renoir’s desire to begin landscape painting manifested itself at the end of the 19th century. Due to his success and subsequent financial stability he was able to exercise greater compositional freedom. As a result of his health problems and a fascination with the local countryside, he was forced to travel more and more frequently to the south of France. He took advantage of these trips, beginning a new phase of creative research, the landscape being his favourite subject.
In a letter to Paul Durand-Ruel he wrote: ‘I am cramming myself with sunshine! This landscape painter’s craft is very difficult for me, but these three months will have taken me further than a year in the studio. Afterward I’ll come back and be able to take advantage at home of my experiments.’ (quoted in Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 191).
His visits to the south of France became increasingly frequent, culminating in 1907 in the purchase of a property near Cagnes, Les Colettes. Renoir settled here with his family and the masterpieces of his later life, inspired by the French landscape, saw the light of day.
Painted in 1896, Arbre à Cagnes, au loin la mer expresses Renoir’s attempt to approach the representation of nature in a sincere and free way. The mastery of colour is remarkable in this landscape where a sea background glimpsed in the distance is dominated by a large tree, whose subtle variations in shade, from green to brown to dark pink, define the volumes.
Describing Renoir’s stylistic innovation in Italy, Barbara Ehrlich White writes: ‘Here Renoir initiated his unique blend of Impressionist and Classicism, the direction for his future artistic development. He does not renounce Impressionism, but combines it with classicism, creating a new style, Classical Impressionism. This synthesis became a major direction of his artistic explorations in the paintings of the next thirty-eight years.’ (B. Ehrlich White, Renoir: An Intimate Biography, Thames & Hudson Inc., New York 2017, p. 113). 
Not limited by the demands of portraiture, landscapes gave Renoir the freedom to experiment outside the constraints of conventional notions of composition. For this reason, they remain one of the most significant parts of his artistic output today.