According to Renoir's friend and biographer Georges Riviere, the painting was begun in October 1876 and finished in 1877. Riviere is the young man in the right foreground. The painting was not exhibited during Renoir's lifetime, and is first mentioned in the collection of the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, but Chabrier probably did not commission the painting.
Pierre-August Renoir
Leaving the Conservatoire
1877187.3 x 117.5 cm
Oil on canvas
Signed (lower right): Renoir
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
Literature
Collection catalogues
Great French paintings from the Barnes Foundation, New York, 1993, pp. 50-53
Literature
Neil L. Rudenstine, The house of Barnes, Philadelphia, 2012, plate 1
Richard R. Brettell and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-century art in the Norton Simon Museum, New Haven, 2006, fig. 91a
Other works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The Luncheon
c. 1879
c. 1879
Young Girls at the Piano
c. 1892
c. 1892
Bouquet of Chrysanthemums
1881
1881
In the Garden
1885
1885
Reclining Nude
1883
1883