Never-before-seen Renoir painting of his son sells for more than $2 million at auction

A hitherto unknown work by the French impressionist painter Augustus Renoir The image of his little son Jean was sold on Tuesday for $2.08 million (€1.8 million) at an auction in Paris, the Drouot auction house informed News.

The oil painting, “L’enfant et ses jouets – Gabrielle et le fils de l’artiste, Jean” (“The Boy and His Toys – Gabrielle and the Artist’s Son, Jean”), had never been exhibited or sold before, although versions have been displayed in museums in Washington, D.C., and Paris, according to PBS.

It belonged to Jean’s godmother, Jeanne Baudot, a friend and student of Renoir, who passed the painting on to her heirs.

Believed to have been painted between 1890 and 1895, it shows the artist’s second son, who later became an Oscar-winning filmmaker, sitting with his nanny.

Pascal Perrin, art historian and Renoir expert, praised during the presentation of the canvas the “exceptional condition of the work, which has not been restored.”

“We were especially surprised by how fresh the paint was,” Perrin told PBS earlier this month. “That is to say, it is a painting that has perfectly preserved all its colors, that has not been repainted, retouched or varnished.”

Jean Renoir, born in 1894, received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 1975, several years before he died at the age of 84. His works include the 1930s classic “La Grande Illusion,” which follows two French prisoners of war trying to escape German captivity during World War I.

The painting from his childhood was valued between 1 and 1.5 million euros and was purchased by an “international buyer,” Drouot said Tuesday.

“It’s exceptional because, above all, it’s a master class in intimacy,” auctioneer Christophe Joron-Derem told PBS. “We see this very tender relationship between Jean and Gabrielle, who knows how to control the child so that Renoir can paint him.”

The high-end art market has fallen in recent years, but lately record sales have indicated a revival in demand.

A self-portrait of the famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for $54.66 million Last week in New York, a record for a painting of a woman, two nights after a canvas by Gustav Klimt. obtained 236.4 million dollars – a record for a work of modern art.