Henriette Henriot


Henriette Henriot was an actress and a favourite model of the French artist Renoir from about 1874–1876. She is known for the model in his painting La Parisienne on display at the National Museum, Cardiff.
Henriot, the daughter of Aline Grossin, a milliner, attended the Conservatoire de musique et de déclamation in Paris in 1872, where she studied acting. She was still using her birth name of Marie Henriette Alphonsine Grossin, and it was not until 1874 that she started to use her stage names of Henriette Henriot, Mademoiselle Henriot, and Madame Henriot, names which emerged when she was appearing in acting roles at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique. Henriot also started modelling for Renoir, alongside the minor parts she performed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon, Théâtre Libre and Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique.
Colin Bailey, formerly of the Frick Collection, said in an exhibition catalogue in 2012:
Between 1874 and 1876 Henriot modelled for five of Renoir's most ambitious full-length pictures and at least seven smaller works. She appears fully and fashionably dressed in La Parisienne, draped and damp in La Source; seated in the shade with a suitor in the Lovers; in Troubadour costume in The Page, and as the protective elder sister in La Promenade.

Although it is not known whether Renoir ever paid Henriot for modelling, he did give her two paintings, including the last painting he made of her: A Vase of Flowers. Renoir had become close friends with Henriot during this time, so much so that he also painted her daughter, Jeanne Angèle Grossin who modelled for him in Fillette au chapeau bleu. Jeanne was killed in a theater fire in 1900, when she was 21.

Stage career

The following is a selection of plays that Henriot acted in: