Art consultant Pascal Perrin stands next to the painting “L’enfant et ses jouets – Gabrielle et le fils de l’artiste, Jean” by Auguste Renoir, on display before its auction at Drouot auction house, Paris, France, October 14, 2025. YVES HERMAN / REUTERS
A previously unknown work by French impressionist painter Auguste Renoir of his toddler son Jean sold for €1.8 million at a Paris auction on Tuesday, November 25, the Drouot auction house told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The oil painting, L’enfant et ses jouets – Gabrielle et le fils de l’artiste, Jean, had never been exhibited or sold before. It belonged to Jean’s godmother, Jeanne Baudot, a friend and student of Renoir’s, who passed the painting on to her inheritors.
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Believed to have been painted between 1890 and 1895, it features the artist’s second son, who went on to become an Oscar-winning filmmaker, shown sitting with his nanny. Pascal Perrin, an art historian and Renoir expert, lauded the “exceptional condition of the work, which has undergone no restoration” while presenting the canvas. The painting had been valued at €1-1.5 million and was acquired by an “international buyer,” Drouot said on Tuesday.
Renoir’s son Jean, born in 1894, went on to receive a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975, several years before he died at the aged 84. His works include the 1930s classic film Grand Illusion, which follows two French prisoners of war trying to escape German captivity during World War I.
Renoir’s son Jean, born in 1894, went on to receive a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975, several years before he died at the age of 84. His works include the 1930s classic film Grand Illusion, which follows two nights after a Gustav Klimt canvas fetched $236.4 million – the second-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
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