“Although Renoir would keep his rented Parisian apartment throughout his life, from the late 1880s onward, much of his time would be spent in the countryside enjoying the tranquil pleasures the retreat had to offer. Renoir’s middle son, Jean, wrote of their home in the region with great nostalgia, “Essoyes, where my mother and Gabrielle were born, has remained more or less unspoiled… there is no other place like it in the whole wide world. There I spent the best years of my childhood. My enchantment used to begin as soon as I got within ten miles of the village, when the train from Paris had passed the flat plain of Champagne and entered the hilly region covered with vineyards… My father felt well whenever he was at Essoyes; and as he covered his canvases with color, he would enjoy having us around as well as the villagers… When little girls came across Renoir in the fields they would whisper to each other, ‘There he is, daubing,’ so as not to disturb him. He would call to them, and they would approach slowly…[The villagers] said he was not at all like other people. He didn’t drink. He never talked politics. He wore old-fashioned cravats. But everyone liked him in spite of it” (Renoir: My Father, New York, 1958, pp. 319-321 and 325).”

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