Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired directly from the artist on 20 August 1918)
Durand-Ruel, New York (acquired from the above in 1920)
Mr. Lucien Abrams, Old Lyme, Connecticut (acquired from the above on 20 September 1933)
Mrs. Aaron A. Green, Alpine, Texas
Sotheby Parke-Bernet New York, 23 October 1974, lot 211 (consigned by the above)
Sarec, S.A., Paris  (acquired from the above)
Galerie Schmit, Paris
Private Collection, France (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above in May 2002 by the present owner

Guy-Patrice & Michel Dauberville, Renoir, Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, 1911-1919, vol. V, Paris, 2014, no. 4088, p. 268, illustrated 

New York, Durand-Ruel, Paintings by Modern French Masters, 1921, no. 28 (titled Buste de jeune fille, coiffée d'un chapeau de paille)
San Antonio, Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, 1961-73 (on loan)

The young woman featured in the present work is Renoir’s last model Andrée Heuschling. In early 1915 at the age of sixteen, she arrived at the Renoir home in Cagnes-sur-Mer along the French Riviera in the midst of World War I. At the time, Renoir was coping with debilitating arthritis and mourning the death of his wife and companion of thirty-six years, Aline. Andrée was first discovered by Renoir’s friends who hoped she would provide him with a renewed motivation to paint despite his failing condition. The artist’s youngest son, Jean Renoir, whom Andrée would later marry, recalled first meeting the young woman at his father’s estate: “She was sixteen years old, red-haired and plump, and her skin took the light better than any model that Renoir had ever had in his life. She sang, slightly off-key, the popular songs of the day; told stories about her girlfriends; was gay; and cast over my father the revivifying spell of her joyous youth. Along with the roses, which grew almost wild at Les Collettes, and the great olive trees with their silvery reflections, Andrée was one of the vital elements which helped Renoir to interpret on his canvas the tremendous cry of love he uttered at the end of his life” (Jean Renoir, Renoir, My Father, New York, 1958, p. 426). Undoubtedly, Andrée was the breath of fresh air Renoir required; she brought beauty, gaiety and youth back into his life.

Immensely grateful for this joy and inspiration, Renoir painted over one hundred paintings of Andrée in the four short years they shared before his death in 1919. In these late works, he showed dazzling mastery of a broad range of painterly effects which are evident in Le Chapeau de paille. John House has noted that he was able to "combine breadth with extreme delicacy of effect…  At times he painted very thinly and with much medium over a white priming, particularly in his backgrounds, allowing the tone and texture of the canvas to show through, and creating effects almost like watercolour. His figures tend to be more thickly painted, but not with single layers of opaque colour; instead fine streaks of varied hue are built up, which create a varied, almost vibrating surface" (John House in Renoir (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London; Galeries Nationaඣles du Grand Palais, Paris & Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 19🍎85-86, p. 278).

Andrée, later known as Catherine Hessling, went on to become a famous silent-film star. She played roles in a number of Jean Renoir’s films, such as Catherine of 1924 and Emile Zola’s Nana of 1926, before she and Renoir split ways in 1931. Thus she left behind a remarkable legacy in the history of early cinema, yet Andrée is ab﷽ove all immortalized in the sun-drenched palette and dappled brushstrokes of the art of Pierre-August🐼e Renoir.