Charpentier, George (1846-1905)
publisher and art collector. The Salon of Charpentier and his wife Marguerite,
née Lemonnier, daughter of a court jeweler, Gabriel Lemonnier, became
a meeting place for Naturalist poets, Impressionist painters and socialist
politicians. They supported Renoir and other Impressionists through exhibitions
on the premises of their magazine “La vie moderne”. Renoir painted
several portraits of their family members. On Mme
Charpentier and Her Children the family is in the small, or
Japanese, drawing room of their mansion. Marguerite is with her three-year-old
son, Paul, whose godfather was Emile Zola, celebrated French writer, and
her six-year-old daughter, Georgette, who sits on a big Newfoundland dog.
See: Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Portrait
of Georgette Charpentier on a Chair.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Madame Charpentier.