The Umbrellas was part of a large exhibition in the Frick Collection in New York. Below is an excerpt from the press release for this exhibition (1).

“One of his most ambitious fulllength paintings of these years is The Umbrellas, a work probably begun in the autumn of 1881. This multifigured composition was undertaken without a client or destination in mind; by the time it was finished, in 1885, Renoir’s style had evolved from the luminous palette and feathery handling of Impressionism to the more linear and muted handling associated with his “Ingresque” period.

Six principal figures dominate the foreground; behind them appear innumerable heads and shoulders and at least twelve umbrellas in a seemingly endless vista. The group on the right consists of an elegantly attired mother accompanied by her two daughters. On the left, a tall young modiste, or milliner’s assistant, carries a cane bandbox over her left arm.

In the background, various diminutive figures, all in hats, raise their umbrellas. The trees at upper left, in full leaf but with touches of brown, might suggest springtime or early autumn. The location of the scene is also ambiguous: from the sea of umbrellas emerge the roof of a kiosk faintly outlined in red at upper left and the blue – gray façade of a distant apartment building at upper right. These are the sole indicators of the modern Parisian boulevard.

It has long been recognized that The Umbrellas was painted in two stages, at least four years apart. Renoir initially may have conceived of his painting as a frieze of fashionably dressed women of different ages and classes shown in an elegant Parisian park. His reworking of the canvas in 1885 led him to adjust the two figures on the left and to include the many supporting figures in the background as well as all the umbrellas.

The disjunctions of facture and fashion that made The Umbrellas difficult to sell during Renoir’s life have assumed different values over time. The juxtaposition of modern and old – fashioned clothing has become far less noticeable and is remarked upon, if at all, only by specialists. The stylistic incongruities in the composition have become more striking and impose themselves immediately upon modern audiences, for the majority of whom Umbrellas is a work of incomparable charm and appeal.

Renoir may have been encouraged to complete this half finished composition in the autumn of 1885 so that it could be included in the first survey of Impressionism for an American audience, organized by his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.

The Umbrellas was one of thirty-eight paintings by Renoir in the exhibition, which opened in New York on April 10, 1886. Retitled Rain in Paris it was shown with eleven of Renoir’s most ambitious figure paintings at the American Art Galleries on Madison Square South and East 23rd Street. The critic of The Art Amateur noted that the main gallery was “almost given up to M. Renoir,” whom he considered “a remarkable painter,” even though he spoiled “several of his pictures by tawdry backgrounds and accessories.” A more philistine review appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle a day after the exhibition opened, which ridiculed the event as “the funniest performance to be seen in New York.”

References

(1) Frick Collection, archived press release for the exhibition ‘Renoir, Impressionism and full-length painting’, New York, 2011.

The following pigment analysis is based on the work of the scientists in the National Gallery in London (1,2).

It is obvious that The Umbrellas contain stylistic incongruities. The woman in a blue dress with her two children on the right is typical of Renoir’s luminous palette and soft and feathery impressionistic style he employed in the 1870s. The woman in the left part of the painting, however, is painted in a more muted and less colourful style characteristic of his later works in which he was leaning towards the French painter D. Ingres.

The reason for this discrepancies lies in the fact that The Umbrellas has been painted in two stages. The first stage must have been around 1880, the second stage around 1885. This assumption has now been confirmed by the pigment analysis of the painting.

It is important to know that Renoir changed his palette between 1880 and 1885 in two significant ways. On one hand, he started to employ artificial ultramarine instead of cobalt blue as his primary blue paint, and on the other hand, he ceased to use chromate yellows such as zinc chromate in favor of Naples yellow (lead-antimonate-yellow).

The analysis of the pigments used for the brown hair of the woman in the left part of the painting shows a brown colour on the surface of the painting covering a thick layer of a mixture of red lake, cobalt blue, and some yellow and white pigments. This shows that this woman was wearing a red hat in the first stage which was overpainted in the second stage to make the woman bareheaded showing her brown hair (see the images of paint cross-section in the original publications (1 and 2)).

The bodice of the woman on the left has also been painted in two stages. The upper layer (stage 2) is painted in artificial ultramarine mixed with other pigments resulting in a grayish-blue colour. The lower layer of stage 1 is painted in a much strongly coloured mixture of cobalt blue, zinc yellow, and red lake.
The brown coat of the man with a raised umbrella behind the woman on the right side contains artificial ultramarine in the upper layer (stage 2). An orange and a pink layer (stage 1) can be seen in the paint cross-section below the surface layer.

The pigment analysis of the far umbrella in the upper center of the painting shows that this area was not painted on during the first stage as the umbrella is painted directly on the white ground and contains the only artificial ultramarine characteristic of stage 2.

The skirt of the older girl to the right has not been overpainted during stage 2 as it only contains cobalt blue, red lake, and white pigment painted over a layer of zinc chromate yellow.

References

(1) David Bomford, John Leighton, Jo Kirby, Ashok Roy, Impressionism: Art in the Making, National Gallery London Publications), 1991, pp. 188-195.

(2) Roy, A., Billinge, R. and Riopelle, C. Renoir’s “Umbrellas” Unfurled Again. National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 33, 2012, 73–81.

(1) Roy, A., Billinge, R. and Riopelle, C. Renoir’s “Umbrellas” Unfurled Again. National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 33, 2012, 73–81.

(2) David Bomford, John Leighton, Jo Kirby, Ashok Roy, Impressionism: Art in the Making, National Gallery London Publications), 1991, pp. 188-195.

(3) Frick Collection, archived press release for the exhibition ‘Renoir, Impressionism and full-length painting’, New York, 2011