The Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), is mainly associated with his house in Haut-de-Cagnes, near Nice on the Cote d’Azur. But for Renoir fans, there’s another corner of France to discover.
Essoyes is a charming little village in Champagne, just south east of Troyes. It was the birthplace of his wife, Aline Charigot, who the young Renoir had met in Paris. She became one of his models, appearing in his 1881 painting of Luncheon of the Boating Party. In 1890 they were married (she had already given birth to their first son, Pierre), and in 1896 Renoir bought a house in the village. Their youngest son, Claude or ‘Coco’ as he was known, was born here in 1901, and his second son, Jean, went to the local village school. By 1907 Renoir was suffering badly from rheumatoid arthritis, so he moved to the warmer and kinder climate of the south of France, buying Les Collettes, an old farm which became the family’s home until Renoir’s death.
