by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 2, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Victor Chocquet looks straight out of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's portrait, his hands brought together across the lower left corner. Behind him hangs a framed work by Eugène Delacroix. The combination is personal: Chocquet collected Delacroix and saw Renoir as a painter who could carry forward his approach to colour. Renoir made this portrait around 1875, near the start of a friendship that connected the painter to one of Impressionism's most committed early supporters. The original is at the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, accession 1943.274. Harvard object record. [1]
There is more than one Renoir portrait of Chocquet. This page concerns the Harvard canvas, recognisable by Chocquet's hands and the framed Delacroix study behind his head. A different, closer portrait made around 1876 belongs to the Oskar Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz” in Winterthur. The old page address is broad, so the collection and image are essential to identifying the actual work. Harvard [1]; Oskar Reinhart Collection. [2]
At a glance
- ArtistPierre-Auguste Renoir
- Museum titleVictor Chocquet (1821–1891)
- Datec. 1875
- Medium and sizeOil on canvas, 53 × 43.5 cm
- Signature“Renoir” at lower left
- CollectionHarvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, 1943.274
- AcquisitionBequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, 1943
Watch: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Explore a Montmartre dance, a gathering beside the Seine and the drawings behind Renoir’s paintings.
Renoir, Bal du moulin de la Galette
Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker discuss Renoir’s 1876 Montmartre dance scene, its light and its crowds.
Watch on YouTubeThese details come from Harvard's current record. Some older publications give slightly different dimensions or call the painting simply Portrait of Victor Chocquet. Using the accession number prevents those catalogue variations from leading us to the Winterthur portrait instead. Harvard records this picture as on display in its European and American art galleries; current arrangements should be checked directly with the museum before a visit. Harvard object record. [1]
How Renoir holds the sitter's attention
Chocquet's grey hair spreads beyond the neat contour of his face. Renoir makes the beard and jacket with shifting touches of pale, warm and cool paint rather than a single uniform grey. The open white shirt supplies a strong vertical shape down the middle. Above it, Chocquet's face is turned almost squarely towards the viewer, the eyes fixed ahead. His hands, laid together at the lower left, give the close view a second point of attention.
Harvard describes the clothes as casual and reads the informal hand position as a sign of closeness between sitter and painter. That interpretation is plausible in the context of their documented friendship, though the pose alone cannot tell us exactly how a particular sitting unfolded. The picture avoids an elaborate costume or ceremonial setting. Its interest lies in the face, hands and the art placed behind them. Harvard gallery text. [1]
The portrait also resists a perfectly smooth finish. Quick, separate marks around the hair, cheeks and coat remain visible. Renoir keeps Chocquet's gaze clear amid that active surface. The white shirt and dark edge of the jacket define the body without closing every passage into a hard outline. Up close, this handling makes colour and texture part of how the sitter appears, not just decoration around a likeness.
Why Delacroix is in the background
The framed image behind Chocquet is a Delacroix preparatory study from his collection. Harvard identifies it as a study for a lunette in the Paris Hôtel de Ville, a building destroyed in 1871. Renoir therefore places two generations of painting in the same small picture: Chocquet, who admired Delacroix, sits in front of the older artist's work while Renoir paints him. Harvard gallery text. [1]
The museum says Chocquet understood Renoir as an heir to Delacroix's use of colour. Showing the study makes that connection visible, without requiring Renoir to write a declaration about influence. The framed work occupies much of the upper background, but Chocquet's face interrupts it. The older art is present as something he owns and values; it does not replace him as the subject.
This detail is easy to miss in a small reproduction. At first the warm frame can read simply as a patch of gold and red behind grey hair. On a second look, it changes the room from a neutral backdrop into a collector's setting. The visible image does not establish every object in Chocquet's home or the exact location of the sitting. It does establish a deliberate relationship between this sitter and a particular piece of art, identified by the holding museum.
A collector before his collection became famous
Chocquet worked in the customs administration of France's Ministry of Finance. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's research account says he attended the 24 March 1875 Impressionist sale at the Hôtel Drouot, bought nothing there, but met Renoir and commissioned portraits of himself and his wife. His enthusiasm for Delacroix preceded his support for the new painters. The Met records a particularly large group of Delacroix works in his collecting history, then later purchases of Renoir, Monet and Cézanne. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victor Chocquet. [3]
It is possible to overstate the sale as an immediate conversion. The Met's chronology separates attending from buying, and the Harvard portrait is dated only c. 1875. What the evidence supports is an early contact with Renoir followed by a commission and a growing commitment to the group. Harvard calls Chocquet a friend and patron; the portrait's original ownership confirms that he obtained this particular canvas from Renoir. Met [3]; Harvard provenance. [1]
The Met traces another consequence of their acquaintance. Renoir introduced Chocquet to Cézanne's paintings at Père Tanguy's Paris paint shop. Chocquet then collected Cézanne and defended his work to visitors at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877. This is a history of looking, buying and advocacy rather than a simple story of a rich sponsor. The Met describes the limited means of his customs post before later inheritance expanded what he could collect. Metropolitan Museum of Art. [3]
The portrait at the second Impressionist exhibition
Harvard lists the picture in the second Impressionist exhibition of 1876. The Musée d'Orsay's Salon and Impressionist exhibition database also links a catalogue entry for a Chocquet portrait to the Fogg painting. An exhibition catalogue title could be brief or generic; the combined museum records are more useful than assuming that every 1876 “portrait” in a later list is unambiguous on its own. Harvard exhibition history [1]; Musée d'Orsay exhibition record. [4]
The date matters because Chocquet was already publicly supporting the artists when their work could draw ridicule. The painting thus links private collecting with public display. We should not infer from its appearance in 1876 that Renoir painted it during the exhibition year: Harvard's object date remains around 1875. Nor should we transfer the date or exhibition history of the distinct Winterthur canvas to this one.
Two Renoir portraits, two collections
The Winterthur work is often reproduced as Portrait of Victor Chocquet too. Its close composition brings Chocquet's head and clasped hands against a lighter background, without Harvard's large, gold-framed Delacroix picture. The Oskar Reinhart Collection dates its version c. 1876. The Commons file for that object records its inventory as SOR1925.9. Harvard's 1875 canvas is 1943.274. Those identifiers and visual differences give readers a reliable way to separate the works even when a search result supplies only the sitter's name. Oskar Reinhart Collection [2]; Harvard. [1]
The distinction also prevents a false account of provenance. The Reinhart museum says its portrait was originally Chocquet's and later joined Oskar Reinhart's collection. The Harvard portrait has a different route after Chocquet. They are related works, but their ownership histories should not be spliced together. Oskar Reinhart Collection press release [5]; Harvard provenance. [1]
From Chocquet to the Fogg Museum
Harvard records Renoir as the first owner and Chocquet as the next, in 1875. Its provenance then passes through dealers, including Durand-Ruel, and records Adrien Hébrard in 1906, the Prince de Wagram, and Grenville L. Winthrop, who acquired the work in 1930. Winthrop's 1943 bequest brought it to the Fogg Museum. The museum's chain is the basis for these names and dates; uncertain links in older ownership should not be smoothed into an invented continuous story. Harvard provenance. [1]
The picture is unusual among Chocquet's many collecting relationships because it began with his own face. He did not simply buy Renoir landscapes or recommend them to others; he sat for a painting and owned its result. Once it left his collection, it crossed the same dealer and private-collection world through which many Impressionist works travelled. The Harvard accession makes this history traceable, while the framed Delacroix still preserves something of the collector's interests in the image itself.
Looking again
Move from the meeting hands to the white shirt, face and grey hair. Then look past Chocquet to the gold frame. Renoir links an individual, a friendship and an artistic inheritance in a compact portrait. The painting makes more sense when its Delacroix study is recognised and when its Harvard identity is kept distinct from the later Winterthur version. Its direct gaze holds the viewer, but the collector's history explains why the background matters.
Renoir artworks directory
Questions about Portrait of Victor Chocquet
The original is at the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accession 1943.274. Harvard lists it as on display in its 19th-century European and American art galleries; check current display details with the museum.
Harvard identifies a framed preparatory study by Eugène Delacroix from Chocquet's collection, made for a lunette at the Paris Hôtel de Ville.
Yes. The Harvard portrait is dated c. 1875. A distinct Renoir portrait dated c. 1876 belongs to the Oskar Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz” in Winterthur.
He was a collector and supporter, employed in the customs administration. He collected Delacroix, Renoir, Monet and Cézanne, and actively defended the new painting in the 1870s.
Discussion
What do you notice when you return to Portrait Of Victor Chocquet?
How do Chocquet’s hands and the framed Delacroix study share your attention?
Reader Insights
How do Chocquet’s hands and the framed Delacroix study share your attention?
Harvard’s accession 1943.274 distinguishes this c. 1875 portrait from Renoir’s c. 1876 Winterthur version.
Where do separate touches of colour keep the face clear without a hard outline?
Join the Conversation
Share a close observation or a source-backed question about Renoir’s portrait of victor chocquet.
References
- Harvard Art Museums, Victor Chocquet (1821–1891), 1943.274: object identity, gallery text on Delacroix, dimensions, provenance, exhibition history and image-use terms View source.
- Oskar Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz”, Impressionist works: the distinct c. 1876 Renoir portrait in Winterthur View source.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victor Chocquet, Modern Art Index Project: research chronology of the collector, Renoir commission and Cézanne advocacy View source.
- Musée d'Orsay, second Impressionist exhibition catalogue entry: Fogg-linked Chocquet portrait listing View source.
- Oskar Reinhart Collection press release View source.
- Whole-work image: Wikimedia Commons, Pierre-Auguste Renoir 115.jpg, an exact-object Yorck Project faithful reproduction marked Public Domain on its file page. It is separate from Harvard's website photographs, whose stated use is personal and noncommercial. The web export is reduced from the 1882 × 2400 Commons file View source.
