Even in the south of France, Renoir worried that Aline would somehow find out about his secret daughter. When he wanted to send another small sum of money, he posted it from Châteauneuf-de-Grasse, a town neighbouring Magagnosc, where he was renting a house. In February 1901, he told Louis to reply to him at the post office in that town: ‘Please respond directly to M. Renoir, General Delivery, Châteauneuf-de-Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes.’196 To escape the cold, Renoir stayed in Magagnosc from mid-November 1900 through April 1901. Aline, Jean and Gabrielle were with him much of the time. Early in this trip, Aline became pregnant with their third child.
Chapter 5
1901–09
Renoir aged 60–68;
Baby Coco,
Debilitating Illness and Worldwide Fame
When Claude Renoir, called Coco, was born on 4 August 1901, Renoir was not happy. A month after Coco’s birth, the painter wrote to a friend: ‘I have just received your kind congratulations, but it does not make me any prouder. The nice little kid could very well have stayed where he was. I will get used to this little by little, but I am really very old [he was sixty] and somewhat tired of everything.’1 At this point, Renoir and Aline were in much worse physical shape than they had been at the births of their two older children. Renoir’s rheumatoid arthritis was increasingly debilitating, and he was often tired and in pain. His hands and fingers were subject to temporary paralysis, the worst scenario for any painter. For her part, Aline at forty-two years old was overweight and often sick with bronchitis. She was also experiencing the first signs of diabetes, which would plague her for the rest of her life.
Aline pushing Coco’s carriage, Le Cannet, 1901–02. Photographer unknown
Aline’s condition contributed to the difficult delivery, which took place at the family’s house in Essoyes.2 Renoir wrote to Jeanne Baudot’s mother on the day of Coco’s birth: ‘Here I am in charge of a third son. The operation was painful, but the result is good. All is well now.’3 Three days later, he reiterated this to Wyzewa: ‘My wife had a third boy, and she was pretty ill. Fortunately, today everything is fine. We have re-entered the calm’, although he himself was having ‘daily and rather strong attacks of rheumatism’.4 However, the delivery was also difficult for the baby. As Renoir explained to Jeanne Baudot, ‘Currently, young Claude cannot nurse because he had to have his tongue pulled when he came into the world, and the resulting swelling, which is starting to decrease, makes this kind of exercise uncomfortable for him. We hope this small inconvenience will be gone by tonight or tomorrow.’5
Perhaps Renoir’s preoccupation with his own health caused him to be less involved in naming this third child. Or perhaps Aline insisted on the name Claude, popular in her family.6 Renoir was somewhat sceptical of the name and joked, in the same letter to Jeanne Baudot: ‘[Jean’s] baby brother is named Claude as in a Reine [Queen] Claude [greengage plum].’7
Aline, Coco and Pierre, Le Cannet, c. 1902. Photographer unknown
A year later, Coco was baptized, as the certificate states: ‘On 21 August 1902, Claude Albert, who was born on 4 August 1901, was baptized in Essoyes, the son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and of Aline Victorine Charigot, residing in Essoyes.’8 The godfather was Albert André (giving Coco’s second name) and the godmother was Mélina Renard, a close family friend from Essoyes. She and her husband, Joseph Clément Munier, a local wine-grower, took care of the Renoirs’ Essoyes house when they were absent.9
Painting and drawing Coco appealed to Renoir strongly, despite his misgivings about having another child at this stage in his life. In the end, Coco modelled more frequently than both his brothers combined. At the time of Renoir’s death in 1919, his studios contained 7 portraits of Pierre, 20 of Jean and 38 of Coco. Sometimes he portrayed Coco alone, as at age six, when he mimics his father, painting indoors at a miniature easel.10 At other times, Renoir posed Coco with Renée Jolivet, the daughter of the local midwife who may have helped deliver Coco.11 Renée came to the Renoirs when she was sixteen and worked for the family for several years as nursemaid to Coco and model to Renoir. In the large Claude and Renée, 1903,12 she stands holding Coco who is wearing the same hat, dress and shoes that Jean had worn seven years earlier in the large Artist’s Family, 1896 (see page 198).13 Cognizant that Coco was not included in The Artist’s Family, Renoir decided when Coco was around four years old, to paint a companion piece. He depicted Coco walking with Renée in a similarly large canvas, The Promenade, c. 1906 (see page 242).14 Until his death, Renoir displayed these two large family portraits on the same wall of his Cagnes home.15 These two large paintings displayed together call to mind Rubens’s Marie de Medici cycle in the Louvre and suggest that, as with Renoir’s similarly big Large Bathers, Experiment in Decorative Painting, 1887 (see page 194), he still wanted to do decorative wall paintings in the tradition of the Pompeian painters and Raphael, Rubens and Puvis de Chavannes.
A family photograph taken in about 1902 in Renoir’s Paris studio when Coco was about one shows Renoir with his white beard and cane, looking frail and elderly. Aline, wearing a frilly blouse and long skirt, holds baby Coco. Pierre at seventeen appears adult and serious in his jacket and tie, while Jean at eight looks young with his short hair. None of the three boys resembles one another. Not visible in this black and white photograph, Pierre had dark hair and Renoir’s dark eyes; Jean took after Aline with reddish-brown hair and blue eyes; Coco had Aline’s blue eyes with Renoir’s blond hair and eyebrows and later inherited Renoir’s delicate thinness.16 Besides looking unlike one another, each of the sons grew up in widely different circumstances, resulting from the large difference in years among them. Pierre was raised in secrecy and poverty; Jean was born into stability and wealth; Coco grew up with preoccupied, sick parents.
The Renoir family (Aline, 43; Coco, 1; Jean, 8; Pierre, 17; Auguste, 61) in the painter’s studio at 73 rue Caulaincourt, Paris, c. 1902. 9 × 6 cm (3½ × 2⅜ in.). Archives Vollard, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Photographer unknown
The constantly moving family complicated Coco’s childhood. Renoir’s health necessitated yearly trips south. As the artist wrote in 1902: ‘Unfortunately, terrible rheumatism makes it necessary for me to leave Paris when the cold weather comes.’17 While he had formerly spent two months in the south and the remainder in the north, from about 1899, Renoir gradually increased the time in the south until it was eight months, with the remaining four spent moving back and forth between Paris and Essoyes. Gabrielle always accompanied Renoir. Usually, Aline preferred to spend her time in Essoyes with baby Coco, making occasional visits to Renoir. Until Pierre left school, he spent the year boarding at Sainte-Croix and visited his parents during the vacations.18 Aided by France’s excellent railway system, the family came and went continually. As Renoir complained to Jeanne Baudot in 1903: ‘Too much coming and going, really. What a crazy idea people had to invent the railways. I am one of its many victims.’19 In the south, Renoir and Gabrielle lived in many different rented apartments, houses and even hotels on the French Riviera or Côte d’Azur, between Le Trayas and Cagnes-sur-Mer. Sometimes, he sought treatment at medicinal spas. Once, at a particularly elegant spa, Bourbonne-les-Bains, Aline and the children came to visit.20
Even in the months he spent in the north, Renoir was always on the move. He regularly commuted between his wife in Essoyes and the art world in Paris. Despite three children and debilitating health problems, art was still the main focus of his life. Just as he had in the past, he often travelled to paint portraits. Seventeen days after Coco’s birth, Renoir wrote to André’s girlfriend, Maleck: ‘I will leave Essoyes in two days…to do portraits’, giving as a return address his Paris apartment, 33 rue de la Rochefoucauld.21 He was going to Fontainebleau at the request of Alexandre Bernheim to paint his sons’ fiancées, the Adler sisters.22
Aline, meanwhile, lived on a different schedule from Renoir. While she spent most of her time in Essoyes, she sometimes visited her husband in the south, bringing along Coco as well as Jean and sometimes Pi
erre. When Coco was two years old, Renoir commented sympathetically about Aline’s comings and goings: ‘It is quite difficult with a child.’23 Back in February 1902, Renoir wrote to his dealer: ‘My wife arrived yesterday in good health with the two little ones.’24 Then, the following month, Pierre came down to join the family during spring vacation, about which Renoir wrote to Jeanne Baudot: ‘We are looking forward to seeing Pierre Friday morning.’25 (André had written the same month to Durand-Ruel: ‘Currently the whole Renoir family is reunited.’26)
Even though Renoir was happy with family reunions, these gatherings distracted him. In February 1904, Renoir wrote from Paris to Aline, who was then in Essoyes with Coco: ‘I think it is preferable to leave me alone down there until Easter.’27 Easter was on 3 April that year; Renoir wished to spend two months in Cagnes with only Gabrielle, without his family. Aline must have agreed to his wishes since she did not insist on coming sooner but brought the family for the Easter holidays. At this point, she and Renoir were so emotionally disengaged that two months apart, even with a small child, was acceptable to both of them. Despite the visits of his family, Renoir often felt isolated from his friends and colleagues. To combat his solitude, during several of the winters from 1903 through 1908, Renoir rented the Villa de la Poste in Cagnes, a house connected to the post office. He rejoiced in the constant flow of people going to get their letters, exclaiming: ‘We are less isolated.’28 Two photographs of around 1906 show both Renoir and his five-year-old-son near a brick fence outside the Villa de la Poste (see pages 224–25).
In contrast, in Paris Renoir loved being part of the artistic community. However, the family’s fifth-floor apartment posed difficulties. Early in her pregnancy with Coco, Aline had found it impossible to climb the stairs, so she had avoided living there and spent most of her time in Essoyes, and Renoir’s poor health made the climb burdensome for him, too. In April 1902, he decided to move to a first-floor apartment at 43 rue Caulaincourt in the eighteenth arrondissement. The same month, he also moved his studio to the first floor at 73 rue Caulaincourt. In a letter of 1 May 1902, nine months after Coco’s birth, Renoir explained: ‘I’ve returned to Paris. My wife is in Essoyes and will be so until my [Paris] apartment is all set up.’29 The Renoirs’ Paris staff arranged the move so that Aline did not need to be involved. Even though she became comfortable with the new apartment, she preferred spending her time in Essoyes (as Renoir wrote in 1898 to Julie Manet, as noted in Chapter 4).
Aline’s health was increasingly an issue. Numerous letters and documents show that she refused to do anything about her obesity and early symptoms of diabetes. Renoir’s sympathy for her problems was tempered by long-standing frustration. For example, from Cagnes in December 1903, he wrote to Jeanne Baudot: ‘I am very worried about my wife. She wrote me that Doctor Journiac has discovered that she is suffering from albuminuria. I have been worried for a long time that this would happen to her and I think, or rather, I fear, that it is quite serious. I think she will be coming back soon and that I will be able to have more news. I wrote to her that it was nothing, considering her difficult labour and delivery of Cloclo, but I do not believe a word of what I wrote.’30 Albuminuria (a condition in which the protein albumin enters the urine) is frequently found in diabetics when the disease is long-standing and left untreated. Unfortunately, during Aline’s lifetime, the only possible treatment was weight loss, with which Aline unsuccessfully struggled. Insulin, the modern method of controlling diabetes, was not discovered until seven years after Aline’s death. Five years after the initial albuminuria diagnosis, Aline was still refusing to deal with her condition, as Renoir wrote to Rivière in early 1908: ‘My wife has albumin and despite the doctor’s recommendation she continues to do the opposite of what she should do.’31
Coco in front of the Villa de la Poste, Cagnes, c. 1906. Photographer unknown. Jean Renoir Archives at UCLA
Diabetes lowered Aline’s immune system, making her highly susceptible to respiratory illnesses. For example, from Paris in September 1908, Renoir wrote to a friend: ‘My wife has a cold in Essoyes with Claude. I left her there without knowing if she’ll recover with this cold weather.’32 Two years later, Gabrielle added to another letter from Renoir: ‘Madame Renoir is recovering from a very bad cold. She isn’t over it yet.’33 Colds were not the worst of her problems, as Renoir complained in the summer of 1906: ‘I left my wife with severe bronchitis and emphysema. It’ll end up going badly, but having a woman cared for is above human strength.’34 These quotations capture Renoir’s frustration and resignation to the fact that Aline refused to take care of herself.
Renoir painting in front of the Villa de la Poste, Cagnes, c. 1906. Photographer unknown. Durand-Ruel Archives, Paris
As Renoir’s disgruntlement and frustration distanced him further from his wife, Gabrielle assumed many of Aline’s former roles. Although she had been hired to look after Jean, now her primary responsibility was to Renoir. A devoted employee, she was his maid, model, care-giver and companion. Despite the fact that she was related to Aline, Gabrielle was technically hired help. Everyone referred to her as Renoir’s maid.35 When writing in her journal about Gabrielle, Julie Manet also designated her as Renoir’s ‘nursemaid’.36 Gabrielle, too, thought of herself as of lower status, referring to Renoir deferentially as ‘the boss’.37 She consistently equated herself with people whose class was lower than that of Renoir and his friends. For example, in 1905, she wrote a note on the reverse of Renoir’s congratulation letter to Maleck on her marriage to André: ‘I’m taking the liberty of sending my love to both you and M. André. Hello from all our neighbours and from the washerwomen. Gabrielle.’38
Renoir himself defined her this way, as when he wrote to Bernheim: ‘P.S. I shall be alone with my maid. R.’39 Gabrielle was subject to Renoir’s unpredictability and indecisiveness. For example, in April 1904, when they were in Cagnes, Renoir explained to Maleck: ‘I am pretty tired of the south of France…. I can’t tell you the exact date of my departure, it’s nerve-wracking. I might suddenly tell Gabrielle that we are leaving tomorrow and phew.’40 His easy companionship with Gabrielle shows his modest view of himself, since despite reaching the height of fame, he still thought of himself as a person who could be friendly with someone from a lower class. He jested self-deprecatingly to André: ‘I am a poet. People say this to me every day. Poets dream. The sun, the scents, the distant ocean. What do I know? I joke around with Gabrielle.’41
Gabrielle’s primary duty was modelling. Since Renoir painted every day, she modelled frequently. The artist Jacques-Félix Schnerb, who visited Renoir in February 1907, described her in his diary: ‘One of his maids [is] a brown-haired woman. I think she is the same model who posed for the resting woman at the Salon d’Automne.’ He also wrote of seeing Gabrielle ‘posing seated, her shoulders covered with an Algerian scarf, her breasts somewhat visible. We chat while he continues to paint, holding his brush in his hand, which was deformed by gout, and he is vigorously scrubbing the canvas whose image is clear to see.’42 While called a maid, Gabrielle was actually part of the family, both literally as Aline’s relative and figuratively in her closeness to Renoir. She appears to have been a kind, warm person who was compassionate about Renoir’s suffering, caring enough that she asked Renoir’s friends for help on his behalf. In January 1908, in a short note on the back of a letter that Renoir wrote to Rivière, she explained that he ‘has had a small hernia for the last few days and he’s worried even though he isn’t getting it checked out. Please write to reassure him.’43
In turn, Renoir felt equally responsible for Gabrielle. When she needed medical attention, he was willing to return to cold Paris so that she could see a doctor. In the height of winter, in mid-February 1904, they left Cagnes by train and travelled overnight to Paris. There they joined Pierre at the family apartment. The rest of the family was staying elsewhere: Aline in Essoyes with Coco and Jean at his Paris boarding school. After arriving in Paris, Renoir explained in a letter to Aline:
‘Tomorrow Gabrielle is going to see a specialist with Mlle Cornillac for her pimples. I preferred to delay [my return to the south of France] so as not to have to come back if she were sick. In the south of France it wouldn’t be fun [for her to be sick].’44 Renoir never even considered replacing Gabrielle or sending her to Paris alone.
Furthermore, Gabrielle was privy to Renoir’s deepest secret – his illegitimate daughter. As Renoir and Gabrielle travelled by train here and there, they stopped to visit Jeanne, her foster family and friends. At this period, it is astonishing that Renoir managed to keep any secrets at all because his fame and fortune were rising rapidly. After twelve years of primarily bad reviews and another twelve of decidedly mixed reception, from 1888 onwards, the evaluations of Renoir’s art had become overwhelmingly positive. The acclaim that his paintings had found in America had quickly spread throughout France and the rest of Europe. Fame did not suit Renoir. He did not feel like a star and was annoyed to be treated in this fashion. The unprecedented public acclamation accentuated his existing anxieties. This negativity had many possible causes: his infirmity, his years of struggle, his view of himself as a craftsman and his possible fear that fame would impede his creative progress. However, he managed to persevere by maintaining his modest outlook, as he wrote to Durand-Ruel in early 1909: ‘I am glad to know that the collectors are less stubborn. Better late than never. But this will not keep me from continuing my daily grind, as if nothing had happened.’45
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