This work was acquired with assistance from the Wolfson Foundation.
Charles Ranshaw; Christie's, 2 May 1947, lot 117; bought by Philip Pouncey on behalf of his uncle; who bequeathed it to him, 1949.
Renoir's La Place Clichy presents a charming and apparently spontaneous impression of Parisian life. It is easy to see from this picture why one commentator described the artist as 'the true painter of young women, the bloom of whose skin, velvet flesh, darting eye, and elegant finery, he renders with sunlit gaiety.'
The 14th-century Macclesfield Psalter contains delightfully surreal marginal illustrations, including a dog dressed as a bishop, a rabbit riding a hound, and a series of grotesque figures with faces in their bottoms and legs emerging from their shoulders.
