Renoir’s Personal Items Heading to NYC Auction

Hundreds of Pierre-Auguste Renoir‘s personal belongings including letters, photos and other memorabilia will be sold at an upcoming auction in New York City. Billed as the single-largest archive of the master painter’s estate, the auction will showcase Renoir’s life as an artist, husband and father.

“It is a gold mine,” Virginie Journiac, an art historian and former curator of the Renoir Museum, told the Associated Press. “These personal Renoir pieces will be seen for the last time as a unique collection unless a single buyer is able to purchase all the lots.”

The auction will also feature 19 original sculptural plaster models, as well as the artist’s polka-dotted silk scarf, marriage license and a notebook full of critic’s reviews. Heritage Auctions estimates the total value of the items at $3 million.

The Renoir Estate Collection will take place on Sept. 19 as 143 lots.

Photo credit: Heritage Auctions