County Museum Acquires Renoir’s ‘Huntsman’ : Art: The painting of the Impressionist’s son, filmmaker Jean Renoir, goes on display today at the Ahmanson Building.

“The Huntsman,” a youthful portrait of filmmaker Jean Renoir by his father, French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, has been given to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Jean Renoir bequeathed the painting to the museum at his death in 1979, but it remained in the family estate until the death of his widow, Dido, earlier this year. The life-size portrayal of a 15-year-old boy in a lush green landscape will go on view today on the second floor of the Ahmanson Building.

The museum did not disclose the value of the gift, but Renoir’s paintings have routinely sold for $1 million or more apiece in recent auctions--primarily to Japanese collectors. The J. Paul Getty Museum paid a record $17.68 million in 1989 for Renoir’s 1870 painting “The Promenade.” Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito shattered that record in May when he paid the astonishing sum of $78.1 million for “Au Moulin de la Galette,” the most highly prized Renoir to come on the market in many years.

“The Huntsman,” which was painted in 1910, when Pierre-Auguste Renoir was 69, is not in a league with these prime works from the painter’s earlier, more vigorous years, but museum spokesmen said they are very pleased with gift. “The Huntsman” provides the museum with an example of the painter’s late work. It is also an artful memento of Jean Renoir, who moved from Paris to Los Angeles in 1941.

The gift is particularly appropriate because “it draws a direct association between Renoir the painter and Renoir the movie maker, who worked here in Hollywood,” said Philip Conisbee, curator of European painting and sculpture. “Jean Renoir left us with perhaps the most affecting body of films ever made, and now we have assurance that his image and his legend will be inextricably tied to Los Angeles, as it properly should be,” museum director Earl A. Powell said in a prepared statement.

Jean Renoir produced such films as “The Grand Illusion” (1937), “The Rules of the Game” (1939) and “French Cancan” (1955). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1974 awarded him a special Oscar for lifetime achievement.

The subject matter of “The Huntsman” is pure fantasy, according to the filmmaker, who said in a 1972 interview that he was never a hunter. His father did not suggest that his son had a killer instinct, however. The young Jean Renoir, who stands with his left hand on his hip and looks directly at the viewer, appears to be a gentle youth who might think twice about wielding a fly swatter, much less firing the rifle in his right hand. Instead of illustrating a rugged sporting theme, which would have been highly uncharacteristic, Pierre-Auguste Renoir spun an idyll about summer light, nature’s bounty and youthful vulnerability.

Renoir occasionally painted family members, but he had a special reason for creating this 63 1/2x38-inch portrait, according to his son. The painter had acquired a big gold frame and he wanted to fill it, the filmmaker reported. The ornate frame remains on the painting at LACMA.

When he painted “The Huntsman,” Renoir had completed his archetypal Impressionist works and had turned toward a more classical style. He posed his son with a dog much as Spanish painter Diego Velazquez portrayed Prince Balthasar Carlos in 1635, Conisbee noted.

Because “The Huntsman” had been kept in the family and properly cared for, it was in excellent condition when the museum received it, conservator Joseph Fronek said. The painting only required a “superficial cleaning” in the museum’s conservation laboratory, he said.

Jean Renoir displayed the painting in his Beverly Hills home for many years. He owned several of his father’s paintings, but “The Huntsman” was the largest and best of the group, Conisbee said.

“The Huntsman” is the second Renoir painting in the museum’s collection. “Two Girls Reading,” a 1890-91 painting by the French master, was donated in 1968 by Armand Hammer.

To complement “The Huntsman,” Jean and Dido Renoir gave the museum a bronze bust of the Aline Renoir, the wife of the painter. Pierre-Auguste Renoir commissioned the bronze as a funeral monument to his wife, who died in 1915. The bust, which is thought to have been executed by another artist, is based on Renoir’s 1885 painting “Mme. Renoir and Her Infant Son.”