Sale: Noveau Drouot, Paris, April 23, 1982, n.n.
Sale: Koller, Zurich, June 21, 1985, lot 5105
Private Collection, Switzerland (and sold: Sotheby's, London, March 31, 1987, lot 23)
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
Hammer Galleries, New York
Acquired from the above in 1988

Bernheim-Jeune, ed., L'Atelier de Renoir, vol. I, Paris, 1931, no. 37, illustrated pl. 17
Guy-Patrice & Michel Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, vol. II, Paris, 2009, no. 858, illustrated p. 105

The canvas is unlined. The surface retains a rich impasto. Under UV light a pin dot retouch in the sail near the left edge is visible. A few scattered pin dots along extreme bottom and right edges are visible under UV light. Otherwise the work is in excellent condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In August and September of 1892 Renoir and his family summered at Pornic, a town in southeast Brittany, first at the Hôtel du Lion d’Or, then the Châlet des Rochers. The artist spent his days, according to a letter sent to Berthe Morisot, teaching his son to swim and lamenting how few landscapes he managed to paint during this interval. At this point in his career, Renoir was well versed in his depictions of rivers and oceans. In the late 1860s he painted the shimmering location of La Grenouillère, an open-air café on an island situated on the Seine. Pleasure crafts and fashionable dress abounded in this depiction of idyllic leisure. He and Monet in 1875 would turn to a more nuanced depiction of sailboats on the Seine at Argenteuil, and his travels to Algeria and southern Italy in the 1880s exposed him to the strong, bright light of the Mediterranean.

In Port du Pornic (La Voile blanche) Renoir depicts an ideal summer day—pedestrians strolling past the water and sitting on a bench beneath the green, leafy shade of the two tall trees at the center of the composition, while beyond them boats with multi-colored sails move in and out of the harbor. Discussing Renoir’s landscapes from this period, John House states that Renoir’s paintings were represented by “the softer more supple handling characteristic of his work of the early 1890s… This harmonious interrelation of man and nature became a central theme in Renoir’s late work” (Renoir (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris & Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1985-86, p. 262). Renoir himself worked on an artistic treatise entitled Grammar several years earlier in 1882-84; in this document he "elaborated his ideas on the relationship between nature and art in this crucial work. In his first draft, the artist wrote, ‘The greatest of all artists is he who has admired nature the most,' and by the final draft he had taken this idea even further: ‘Any individual wishing to make art must be inspired solely by works of nature… She alone can give us the variety of composition, design and colour necessary to make art” (as quoted in Renoir Landscapes 1865-1883 (exhibition catalogue), The Nation🤡al Gallery, London; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa & Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2007-08, p. 262𓆉).