The Barnes Foundation removed a precious Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting from view last year for some much-needed rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
The Henriot Family (La Famille Henriot)<\/a>, an oil painting completed around 1875, is an impressionist work depicting three people and two long-haired dogs relaxing in a forest. A young woman in a white dress gazes directly at the viewer while a man to her right appears to be drawing her. The central figure is Henriette Henriot, one of Renoir\u2019s frequent models, and her admirer is the painter\u2019s brother, Edmond Renoir. <\/p>\n It\u2019s one of 181 Renoir paintings that Albert C. Barnes<\/a> amassed during his lifetime, leading the Barnes Foundation to hold the largest collection of Renoir artworks in the world. He purchased the piece from art dealer Etienne Bignou in 1935 for $50,000, which amounts to about $1.17 million today. <\/p>\n Sitting above a doorway in the museum\u2019s main room, The Henriot Family has long been eyed for restoration, according to WHYY<\/a>. The staff brought the painting into the conservation lab in February 2025. <\/p>\n An old layer of resin varnish on the paint altered the colors over time, turning them from blue and gray to yellow and green. On a microscopic level, the paint has also begun separating from the canvas and the base layer in a process called \u201cmicro-flaking.\u201d<\/p>\n So far, Barnes\u2019 associate conservator of paintings Christie Romano has reportedly put in some 200 hours closely studying the painting under a microscope to identify problematic areas. <\/p>\n The conservation efforts will remove the yellowing layer of resin to restore the original colors underneath and fix the areas most affected by micro-flaking using calcium carbonate. The project is funded by a grant of an undisclosed amount from Bank of America as part of its Art Conservation Project<\/a>; The Barnes is one of 16 recipients worldwide. <\/p>\n Cultural institutions in Philadelphia have benefited from the bank\u2019s conservation grants in previous years. In 2019, the bank also funded the restoration<\/a> of The Large Bathers by Paul C\u00e9zanne at the Barnes and The Great Bathers by Renoir at the Philadelphia Art Museum<\/a>. Over the past 16 years, the Art Conservation Project has issued grants for some 275 conservation projects across 40 countries. <\/p>\n The Henriot Family will be back on view at the Barnes some time in February, with its gray and blue looking brand new.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Barnes Foundation removed a precious Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting from view last year for some much-needed rehabilitation. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":495830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,223066,1033,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-495829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-batnes-renoir-henriot-family-restoration","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115846624198538744","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}