"je me porte à merveille"

Autograph letter signed by Auguste Renoir, dated in his hand April 6, 1915. One page in black ink on a sheet with letterhead "Les Collettes Cagnes (A.-M.)".
Transverse fold marks inherent to posting.
Renoir composed this missive in his house at Les Collettes in Cagnes, which witnessed the birth of works of great sensuality, and where he also tried his hand at sculpture:


« Cher ami
J'ai vu ta lettre avec plaisir je me porte à merveille et ce matin reçu lettre de Jean [Renoir] qui se repose quelques jours. Je t'écrirai plus longuement bientôt, tâche surtout malgré tous les ennuis de bien te porter.
A toi » (Dear friend, I was pleased to see your letter, I am in excellent health and this morning received a letter from Jean [Renoir] who is resting for a few days. I will write to you at greater length soon, try above all despite all the troubles to take good care of yourself. Yours)

We find this same enthusiasm from Renoir a few weeks later in the memoirs of his son Jean, who was hit by a German bullet shortly after this letter: « Mon père m'attendait dans son fauteuil roulant. Il y avait déjà plusieurs années qu'il ne marchait plus. Je le trouvais beaucoup plus recroquevillé qu'à mon départ pour le front. Par contre, son expression était d'une vivacité extrême. Il m'avait entendu sur le palier et rayonnait de sa malice heureuse. Ses yeux semblaient dire : 'cette fois ils t'ont bien raté !' » (My father was waiting for me in his wheelchair. It had been several years since he could walk. I found him much more hunched over than when I left for the front. However, his expression was extremely lively. He had heard me on the landing and was beaming with his happy mischief. His eyes seemed to say: 'this time they really missed you!').
Touching and radiant note from the great painter, a very visual document.
Provenance: pasted stamp on verso of the sheet, from the collection of the scholar and collector Ray Rawlins.