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
Renoir’s Still Life with Pomegranates arranges warm yellow and red fruit in a shallow patterned bowl. One pomegranate is cut open so that its dark seeds interrupt the smooth skins around it. More fruit and several small, oval forms rest on the white cloth in front. The painting corresponds to the privately held Nature morte à la grenade catalogued by Christie’s [1] as circa 1893, signed “Renoir” at the lower right, oil on canvas, 37.5 × 47.2 cm. Its illustrated image matches the old page’s bowl, opened fruit, cloth and signature placement.
The sale title uses the singular grenade, or pomegranate, while the English page title uses the plural. That difference does not imply two paintings. The object’s dimensions and specific arrangement distinguish it from several later Renoir pomegranate still lifes, including two separate works at the Barnes Foundation. Christie’s lot record [1]; Barnes Pomegranates. [2]
At a glance
- ArtistPierre-Auguste Renoir
- Catalogue titleNature morte à la grenade (Still Life with Pomegranate)
- Datec. 1893, according to Christie’s
- Medium and sizeOil on canvas, 37.5 × 47.2 cm
- CollectionPrivate collection at the time of the cited sale
- Identifying detailSigned “Renoir” at the lower right
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Watch on YouTube“Private collection” describes the status in the cited auction record, not a claim about the painting’s exact owner today. The catalogue supplies a chain of earlier owners but does not establish its present location. This matters because the English title is broad enough to bring up other paintings by Renoir with the same fruit.
The bowl and the broken fruit
The shallow bowl gives the picture a clear centre. Its cream surface is decorated with small red and green floral marks that echo the colours of the fruit. The rim rises at both ends, making a crescent under the crowded group. Several rounded fruits press against one another inside it; leaves spill out at either side. In front, four small grey-green ovals form a lower cluster, while a single red fruit sits apart on the right. These surrounding objects widen the arrangement beyond the dish.
The cut pomegranate near the right side of the bowl is the visual pivot. Its rough opening shows dark red seeds and pale inner membranes. The rest of the fruit has largely unbroken skins, so this opening gives the eye a different texture and depth. Christie’s specifically calls attention to the exposed interior in its lot essay. [1] The opening is evidence of an artistic choice, not proof of a symbolic story. No consulted record establishes a particular allegorical meaning for the cut fruit.
Renoir sets the fruit against a brown field and a pale tablecloth. The upper background has little detail, which leaves the silhouettes to carry the top half of the composition. At the bottom, yellow, pink and blue touches enliven what first appears to be plain white linen. The bowl’s rim and the cloth folds make a sequence of shallow curves; the fruit repeats them in rounder, heavier forms. There is no single hard contour everywhere. The painting depends on colour and soft transitions while keeping each group legible.
A still life from the 1890s
The Christie’s catalogue [1] dates this canvas around 1893 and treats still life as a sustained part of Renoir’s practice. The catalogue essay proposes that the close grouping of fruit and the measured arrangement relate to Renoir’s renewed attention to structure during the 1880s and 1890s. That is an interpretation of the painting, rather than a documented statement by Renoir about this specific bowl.
It is easy to call a still life a quick diversion from portraits or figure painting. Here the fruit is tightly composed: the yellow fruit near the top balances a red one in the middle, the opened fruit makes the right side more complex, and the isolated red fruit carries colour down to the table. The dish holds most of the mass, while leaves and small foreground forms prevent the arrangement from becoming a rigid pyramid. The small canvas asks for close looking, not a grand narrative.
Christie’s also compares Renoir’s fruit with the French still-life tradition, including Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, and contrasts the composed grouping with an almost contemporary Cézanne still life. Such comparisons can clarify what is distinctive here: the objects seem to settle together in a warm, continuous light. They should not be used to claim that Renoir copied a particular Chardin canvas or that this painting was made in direct response to a particular Cézanne. Christie’s lot essay. [1]
Which pomegranate painting is this?
The Barnes Foundation’s Pomegranates (BF29) [2] is dated around 1910 and is a much smaller, long horizontal canvas, 21.3 × 38.4 cm. It shows three pomegranates on a white cloth, one split open, without this large patterned bowl. The Barnes catalogue records its later Durand-Ruel and Albert Barnes provenance. None of those facts should be transferred to the 1893 privately held bowl painting merely because both include an open fruit.
A second Barnes work, Pomegranate and Figs (BF24) [3], is dated 1917 and pairs a pomegranate with figs on an even smaller oblong canvas. Its subject and format are also different. Together, the three paintings show Renoir returning to similar fruit over decades, while making clear that titles and motifs alone are poor identifiers. The bowl, signature position, dimensions and circa-1893 catalogue date identify the work on this page.
The recorded ownership path
Christie’s lists Étienne Bignou in Paris as an earlier owner. It then records an anonymous Sotheby’s London sale on 31 March 1965, followed by M. Knoedler & Co. in New York. The owners associated with the Christie’s listing acquired it from Knoedler on 1 November 1969. This is the documented sequence in that sale record; it does not by itself trace the picture back to Renoir’s studio or identify every owner between its creation and Bignou. Christie’s provenance. [1]
The same catalogue lists a 1943 Renoir exhibition at Dalzell-Hatfield Galleries in Los Angeles and earlier publications by Meier-Graefe, Drucker and Fezzi. These references indicate that the painting was known and illustrated well before the sale. The entry said François Daulte intended to include it in a forthcoming still-life volume of his Renoir catalogue raisonné. That was a statement about a planned publication at the time of the sale, not evidence that the volume was subsequently completed. Christie’s literature and exhibition lists. [1]
Looking again
Begin with the yellow fruit at the top, move down through the red fruit and the cut opening, then follow the painted flowers on the bowl to the small forms on the cloth. The picture shifts between rounded skins, exposed seeds, leaves, porcelain and fabric. Renoir gives each a different feel within one compressed arrangement. The quiet background allows those changes in surface and colour to hold attention.
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Questions about Still Life with Pomegranates
Christie’s dates the privately held Nature morte à la grenade circa 1893. The signature is reported at the lower right, but the catalogue does not say the signature includes a date.
The Christie’s lot record gives 37.5 × 47.2 cm for the oil-on-canvas work. It is a horizontal painting.
The cited sale record describes a private collection and documents earlier ownership. It does not establish a current museum display or name a present owner.
No. Barnes BF29 is a smaller, longer picture dated about 1910, with three fruits laid on cloth and no patterned bowl. The work on this page is the circa-1893 bowl painting recorded by Christie’s.
Discussion
What do you notice when you return to Renoir’s bowl of pomegranates?
How does the opened fruit change the rhythm of the crowded bowl?
Reader Insights
How does the opened fruit change the rhythm of the crowded bowl?
Christie’s records the signed, privately held canvas at 37.5 × 47.2 cm and dates it circa 1893.
Which details distinguish this painting from the Barnes Foundation’s later Pomegranates?
Join the Conversation
Share a close observation or a source-backed question about the circa-1893 still life.
References
- Christie’s, Nature morte à la grenade: exact-object title, date, dimensions, signature, provenance, exhibition record and catalogue interpretation View source.
- Barnes Foundation, Pomegranates (BF29): distinct later three-fruit painting, dimensions, date and provenance View source.
- Barnes Foundation, Pomegranate and Figs (BF24): distinct 1917 composition View source.
