The Cafe Scene That Set Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Auction Record Thanks to Big Spending Japanese Tycoon

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Au Moulin de la Galette (1876-77?) sold for $71m at Sotheby's in New York on May 17, 1990.

Renoir painted two versions of the popular garden cafe in Montmartre and its clientele of fashionably dressed Parisians, one of which he showed at the 1877 Impressionist exhibition. It was probably the larger of the two versions he painted, which was first owned by fellow artist Gustave Caillebotte, and now hangs in the Musee d'Orsay and before that the Louvre. Renoir's smaller version has a colorful history of its own, however.

The smaller version of the cafe scene had been consigned by Betsey Cushing Whitney, the widow of John Hay "Jock" Whitney, the financier and publisher, who was a former US Ambassador to Britain. He had bought it in 1929. The Whitneys had hung it in their Long Island mansion for decades.

The $71m paid for Au Moulin de la Galette set a new record for an Impressionist work although it was slightly overshadowed by a Van Gogh portrait, which fetched $82.5m the same week at Christie's, also in New York. Both were purchased by Ryoei Saito, a controversial Japanese paper tycoon, who said that he intended to be cremated with them. He later claimed it was a joke aimed at the taxman, although few found it amusing.

When his company Daishowa got into financial trouble, it was forced to sell the art amassed by its chairman, who had boasted: 'It's my principle to get what I want, no matter how much money it costs." The Renoir is now believed to be in a private collection in Switzerland.

The sale beat Renoir's previous auction record by $54.96m, a 325% rise. His previous record was set by La promenade (1870), which sold for $16.04m at Sotheby's on April 4, 1989.

A Brief History of Renoir at Auction