Daily Mail-
Has one of the West’s great sensual paintings — Renoir’s Baigneuse — been de-sexed by restorers? That is the startling suggestion from a London art historian.
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| Baigneuse (
After the Bath ) Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1888 Oil on canvas Private collection. |
The picture, worth an estimated £18 million, was shown at a London auction house last month. Mysteriously, it was withdrawn at the 11th hour and ‘sold privately’.
Artwatch, a group which questions art-restoration methods, fears the painting was markedly altered from its 19th-century state. Shadowing at the base of the young woman’s naked back seemed to have been lost. Brush strokes were, apparently, lost or reduced
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| Before |
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| After |
Artwatch, a group which questions art-restoration methods, fears the painting was markedly altered from its 19th-century state. Shadowing at the base of the young woman’s naked back seemed to have been lost. Brush strokes were, apparently, lost or reduced.
'The painting was thinner, smoother, more anodyne than in early photographs,’ says Artwatch’s Michael Daley. ‘It used to have a sense of the struggle Renoir had painting it. For me, it is now less sexy, less of a real female body.’
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