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Pierre - Auguste Renoir. Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre.
1876. Oil on fabric, 131 × 175 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.
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Renoir delighted in "the people's Paris", of which the Moulin de la Galette near the top of Montmartre was a characteristic place of entertainment,
and his picture of the Sunday afternoon dance in its acacia-shaded courtyard is one of his happiest compositions. In still-rural Montmartre, the Moulin,
called "de la Galette" from the pancake which was its specialty, had a local clientele, especially of working girls and their young men together with a
sprinkling of artists who, as Renoir did, enjoyed the spectacle and also found unprofessional models. The dapple of light is an Impressionist feature
but Renoir after his bout of plein-air landscape at Argenteuil seems especially to have welcomed the opportunity to make human beings, and especially
women, the main components of picture.
Owned by John Hay Whitney, on May 17, 1990, his widow sold the painting for US$78 million at Sotheby's in New York City, New York to Ryoei Saito,
the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company, Japan. At the time of sale, it was one of the top two most expensive artworks ever sold,
together with van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet",
which was also purchased by Saito. Saito caused international outrage when he suggested in 1991 that he intended to cremate both paintings with him when he died.
However, when Saito and his companies ran into severe financial difficulties, bankers who held the painting as collateral for loans arranged a confidential sale
through Sotheby's to an undisclosed buyer. Although not known for certain, the painting is believed to be in the hands of a Swiss collector.
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