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
A low church and a narrow band of sky occupy the far upper left of this painting. The cliff takes almost everything else. Renoir’s L’église de Varengeville et les falaises, catalogued by Christie’s as a signed oil painting of 1880 [1], gives its named building an unusually small part in a view shaped by the sloping ground. The local route preserves the spelling “Varangeville,” used in some older captions; the present place name is Varengeville-sur-Mer.
The Christie’s image and the local splash show the same high ridge, tiny church at its left edge, pale exposure of chalk on the descending slope, broad ochre foreground and cool sea at right. The match is important. Claude Monet painted the same coastal church repeatedly in 1882, and a title alone could easily attach a Monet object record to Renoir’s distinct 1880 canvas. This page concerns Renoir’s painting.
Contents
- The painting at a glance
- Where is the church?
- Colour and the uncertain time of day
- Renoir in Normandy, 1879–80
- Ownership and exhibition history
- Renoir’s view and Monet’s later church paintings
- Why the cliff dominates
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- ArtistPierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
- Catalogue titleL’église de Varengeville et les falaises
- Date1880, according to Christie’s
- MediumOil on canvas
- Size54 × 73 cm
- Signature“Renoir,” lower right, as recorded in the lot catalogue
- Documented statusPrivately held when offered at Christie’s in 2011; present owner and display location unverified
- Catalogue referenceDauberville, Renoir, 2007, no. 156, as cited by Christie’s
These object details belong to the Christie’s record of the exact canvas. [1] The catalogue also says the work was to be included in a forthcoming Renoir catalogue critique prepared from the Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and Wildenstein archives. That is the sale house’s statement about a future publication, not confirmation of a published entry today.
Where is the church?
Look to the upper-left corner. A small group of pale walls and a darker pointed form mark the church above the ridge. It is easy to miss because the painting gives more space to the irregular cliff and its covering of vegetation. The building provides a place name and a scale for the height of the coast, while the ground between the viewer and the church does most of the visual work.
The ridge begins almost level at left, then bends down steeply to the right. Its dark line separates the warm land from a muted sky. A lighter cut through the descending slope suggests exposed chalk, but the surface around it is built from browns, greens, yellow ochre and red-orange marks. The sea is visible beyond the right edge of the land. Renoir does not turn the church into a crisp silhouette against open sky; it stays small and partly absorbed by the headland.
The foreground is also unsettled. Loose touches of reddish brown gather in the centre, while thin darker strokes interrupt the warmer surface. The eye can move from this low patch up the diagonal towards the ridge, then across the calm horizontal of the water. The opposition between sloping land and level sea helps explain the painting’s strong sense of height, even though no figure stands in the view.
Colour and the uncertain time of day
The older page described a definite sunset based on a supposed western sun. The painting and its catalogue do not give that certainty. The warm earth colours can suggest late light, but they also describe grass, soil and cliff vegetation; the sky is pale and subdued rather than a clear record of a setting sun. Direction of view and season cannot be calculated reliably from this small painted image alone.
Christie’s essay quotes a 1996 exhibition catalogue on Renoir’s use of unusually subdued colours and thin layers of paint in coastal landscapes of this period. The restrained palette fits this picture’s broad patches of ochre, umber, blue-grey and green. It does not make the canvas a rehearsal for an entirely different later style. Renoir painted it before his 1881 journey to Italy, so the old page’s account of an Italian trip as the cause of this specific surface reverses the chronology.
Seen close up, the cliff is less uniform than its first dark impression. Small contrasting strokes make a broken surface; a pale line catches the curve of the slope; the sky changes gently in colour as it approaches the horizon. This is an observation of the reproduced painting, not a technical analysis of the actual paint layers. The accessible catalogue does not give a conservation examination, so claims about a white ground showing through or the exact pigments would require separate evidence.
Renoir in Normandy, 1879–80
The Christie’s lot essay [1] places Renoir on the Normandy coast during visits in 1879 and 1880 to Paul-Antoine Bérard, a patron whose country house at Wargemont was near Dieppe. Renoir’s coastal excursions supplied subjects beyond the commissioned portraits associated with this period. The catalogue situates the Varengeville canvas among works concerned with shore, weather and the changing relationship of land, sea and air.
That context is specific enough to place the painting, but it does not prove the day on which Renoir set up his easel, how much he completed outdoors, or what weather he saw. A sale essay can describe a group of related landscapes without supplying a diary for this one. The viewer can still recognise the attraction of this site: from a low viewpoint, a modest church becomes a small landmark on an immense ridge.
The church is Saint-Valéry at Varengeville-sur-Mer, west of Dieppe. The local tourism office [2] describes its churchyard on a cliff high above the English Channel and notes its appearance in paintings by Monet. That geographical account helps identify the landmark; Renoir’s picture should still be read as a painting, not as a survey of every contour or building visible in 1880.
Ownership and exhibition history
Christie’s traces this canvas through Galerie Beyeler in Basel, a Paris sale in 1974, O’Hana Gallery in London, a Sotheby’s New York sale in 1985 and a Christie’s New York sale in 2007. Its 2011 record says the consignor acquired the painting at the 2007 auction. The provenance published there begins at Galerie Beyeler; it does not present an unbroken chain from Renoir’s studio to that gallery.
The same catalogue records a 1967 exhibition at Tokyo’s Ueno Matsuzakaya that travelled to Nagoya, Osaka, Shizuoka and Fukuoka. This is evidence of public display during that exhibition, not a reason to infer that the work is presently in Japan. The sale catalogue identifies the work as Dauberville no. 156 and notes an illustration in the 2007 catalogue raisonné. Those bibliographic anchors, its measurements and the reproduced composition make the object more secure than the English route title alone.
An auction record is a snapshot at the time of an offering. The 2011 description cannot establish a current owner, whether the lot sold, or where it may now be displayed. Readers seeking the original should check a later collection record rather than treat the last documented private holding as permanent.
Renoir’s view and Monet’s later church paintings
Monet’s images of Saint-Valéry are valuable comparisons, but they are different paintings. Christie’s catalogue for Monet’s L’Église de Varengeville, soleil couchant [3] says the church had caught Renoir’s eye two years before Monet’s 1882 treatments. The artists shared an interest in the site; their canvases need their own dates, sizes, pictures and ownership histories.
In Renoir’s composition the sloping headland fills the view, the church remains tiny at far left, and a strip of sea opens on the right. Monet’s later series varies the viewpoint and effect, often making the church or cliff profile more explicit. The shared landmark does not make Renoir’s work part of Monet’s series, and it is not evidence that either artist copied the other. It shows how one coastal place could produce markedly different arrangements.
The route’s older spelling also needs care. Varengeville-sur-Mer is the current place name used by the local tourism office. “Varangeville” appears in some titles and the retained URL, but it should not be used to invent a second site. The French catalogue title and exact image identify Renoir’s painting despite this variation.
Why the cliff dominates
This is a landscape in which a human structure is almost swallowed by land. The church tells us where we are, then directs attention to the much larger shape on which it stands. Renoir emphasises the coast’s diagonal fall, the roughness of its vegetation and the quiet distance of water and sky. The building’s small scale gives the scene proportion without turning it into an architectural portrait.
The work also rewards caution about interpretation. Its earthy colour is observable; a particular hour, season or religious message is not documented. The visible brushwork can be described; a specific paint ground or cause in the artist’s later Italian travels cannot be deduced from this reproduction. The exact-object catalogue gives a firmer basis for reading the picture: a signed 1880 oil of 54 × 73 cm, made in Renoir’s Normandy period, with a documented twentieth-century trail.
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Questions about The Varengeville Church and the Cliffs
It is Renoir’s signed 1880 L’église de Varengeville et les falaises, catalogued by Christie’s in 2011. Monet painted other views of the same church in 1882.
Christie’s records an oil on canvas measuring 54 × 73 cm.
It is the small cluster of buildings on the ridge at the upper left. The descending cliff occupies most of the scene.
The accessible object record dates the work to 1880 but does not identify a time of day. Its warm colour alone cannot establish sunset.
The last verified public record used here is a 2011 Christie’s sale catalogue for a privately held canvas. A current owner or display location has not been verified.
Discussion
What do you notice when you return to The Varengeville Church and the Cliffs?
How does the long slope guide your eye towards the church?
Reader Insights
How does the long slope guide your eye towards the church?
Christie’s catalogues this exact Renoir coastal painting in 1880, 54 × 73 cm.
Where do you find the church, and how small is it compared with the cliff?
Join the Conversation
Share a close observation or a source-backed question about Renoir’s Varengeville view.
References
- Christie’s, Renoir, L’église de Varengeville et les falaises, 2011: exact object, dimensions, date, provenance, exhibition history and landscape context View source.
- Dieppe-Normandie Tourism, Saint-Valéry church and coastal site: location and building identification View source.
- Christie’s, Monet, L’Église de Varengeville, soleil couchant: later comparison and chronology only; its object details are not assigned to Renoir’s canvas View source.
