Unknown Renoir painting sells for $3.7m at auction

The painting had never been exhibited or sold before. Photo / Alain Jocard, AFP

A previously unknown work by French impressionist painter Auguste Renoir of his toddler son Jean sold for €1.8 million ($3.7 million) at a Paris auction on Tuesday, the Drouot auction house says.

The oil painting – L’enfant et ses jouets – Gabrielle et le fils de l’artiste, Jean (The Child and His Toys - Gabrielle and the son’s artist, Jean) – had never been exhibited or sold before.

It belonged to Jean’s godmother Jeanne Baudot, a friend and student of Renoir’s, who passed the painting on to her inheritors.

Believed to have been painted between 1890 and 1895, it features the artist’s second son, who went on to become an Oscar-winning film-maker, shown sitting with his nanny.

Pascal Perrin, an art historian and Renoir expert, lauded the “exceptional condition of the work, which has undergone no restoration” while presenting the canvas.

Jean Renoir, born in 1894, went on to receive a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975, several years before he died aged 84.

His works include the 1930s classic La Grande Illusion, following two French prisoners of war trying to escape German captivity during World War I.

The painting had been valued at €1m-€1.5m and was acquired by an “international buyer”, Drouot said on Tuesday.

The high-end art market has dipped in recent years, but lately, record-breaking sales have indicated a revival in demand.

A self-portrait by celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for US$54.66m ($96m) in New York last week, a record for a painting by a woman, two nights after a Gustav Klimt canvas fetched US$236.4m – the second-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

- Agence France-Presse