Game room

Auguste RENOIR • Madame Gaston Bernheim de Villers, née Suzanne Adler

The Villa du Temps retrouvé is very proud to exhibit, for the first time since its creation, the two portraits painted by Renoir of the Adler sisters, both married to the Bernheim brothers. The Bernheim-Jeune brothers established themselves as the first generation of Impressionist art merchants, exhibiting the movement's first paintings in 1874. As Monet's gallery owners, they also exhibited Pissarro in Éragny, Eugène Carrière, Pierre Bonnard and Auguste Renoir. In Le Temps Retrouvé (in In Search of Lost Time), Proust refers to their gallery at 8 Rue Laffitte in Paris, which he frequented: ‘I had an infinite will to call the portrait that had been purchased the previous month at Bernheim Jeune an ancestral portrait.’

Auguste RENOIR • Portrait de Mme Josse Bernheim-Dauberville née Mathilde Adler

The subjects of these twin paintings are Mathilde (1882–1963) and Suzanne (1883–1961) Adler. In 1901, Mathilde married her cousin Josse Bernheim-Jeune (1870–1941), whilst her sister Suzanne married Josse’s brother, Gaston Bernheim-Jeune (1870–1953). It was therefore Renoir, the gallery’s painter, who was commissioned to paint the portrait of the two young brides in September 1901. The two couples lived together in the same hotel, at 107 Avenue Henri-Martin in Paris, where these portraits were hung. Now held in different collections, here they are brought together for the first time in a public exhibition.

Reynaldo Hahn’s bridge table

Marcel Proust met Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) on 22 May 1894, in the prestigious salon of Madeleine Lemaire (1845-1928), one of Madame Verdurin's inspirations in ‘In Search of Lost Time’. The musician became one of her greatest loves.

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