Seated Bather
c. 1883-1884
Oil on canvas, 119.7 x 93.5 cm
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

The Bathers
1887

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. Carroll S. Tyson Collection

Apres le bain
1910
Oil on canvas, 95 x 76 cm

Les baigneuses (Bathers)
1918
Oil on canvas, 80 x 65 cm
The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania

Bathers
1918

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Mademoiselle Romain Lacaux

Alfred Sisley and his Wife
1868

Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

All the Impressionists, with the possible exception of Sisley, painted portraits at some time or other and general characteristics--consistent with the nature of the Impressionist movement in other ways--were the unconventional and natural attitude they looked for and the freshness of color they introduced. Courbet and Manet both gave an example to the younger painters in France in the relish with which, as realists, they pictured contemporary dress and the young Renoir, when he painted his newly-married friend Sisley with his wife, was likewise emboldened to make much of the current fashion in men's and women's clothes, though endowing them with an attraction that came from his visual approach. The black and grey of Sisley's attire is well contrasted with the splendour of red and gold in Madame Sisley's spreading skirts but there is the further contrast to this finery in the intimate and affectionate gesture with which he offers and she takes his arm. It was already one of the Impressionist devices to place the figures in sharp focus against a blurred background. The background here gives a hint of the open-air portraits the group would paint some years later at Argenteuil, though the figures and faces are painted as yet with no attempt to suggest outdoor lighting.

The Horsewoman
1872

Woman Reading
1874-1876

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Young Woman with a Veil
1875

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Study for Nude in Sunlight
1875-1876

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Portrait of Victor Chocquet
1875
Oil on canvas, 46 x 37 cm
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Chocquet, Victor (1821-91) An official in the Customs Service who had private means, Chocquet was a born collector. He started off by accumulating bric-a-brac, and then moved on to paintings and drawings, showing an early interest in the works of Delacroix. In 1875 he attended the Impressionist sale at the Hotel Drouot and, though he did not buy anything, he was deeply impressed by the works of Renoir, seeing an affinity between his style and that of Delacroix; he immediately commissioned him to paint portraits of himself and his wife (Victor Chocquet, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, and Madame Chocquet, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart). They got on famously together, and Renoir gradually introduced him to the work of his friends, taking him first to the shop of Pere Tanguy to show him the works of Cezanne. Chocquet commissioned a portrait from him, and Cezanne actually produced two, one analogous to that of Renoir (1876-77; Collection of Lord Rothschild, London), the other showing him in slippered ease, seated in an armchair (c. 1877, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio). Henceforth, Chocquet became an Impressionist addict, intent on proselytizing as well as buying. When he attended their exhibitions, Duret recounted, `People amused themselves by teasing him on his favorite subject. He was always ready for them, invariably finding the right words as far as his friends were concerned. He was above all else indefatigable on the subject of Cezanne, whom he counted as one of the greatest of painters. Many visitors were amused by this zeal, which they saw as a mild form of insanity.' Chocquet's already large collection was further increased as he became richer and installed himself in a large house in the rue Monsigny. After his death, his collection was sold at the Hotel Drouot, and included 32 works by Cezanne, 11 by Renoir, 11 by Monet and one each by Pissarro and Sisley, as well as works by Delacroix, Corot, Courbet and Daumier.

Portrait of Claude Monet
1875

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Portrait of Alfred Sisley
1875-1876

Art Institute of Chicago

Irene Cahan d'Anvers
1879

E.G. Buhrle Collection in Zurich

Alphonsine Fournaise
1879

Lady Sewing
1879

Art Institute of Chicago

Girls Putting Flowers on their Hats
1890

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Lucie Berard (Child in White)
1883

Art Institute of Chicago

Young Girl-Seated
1909

Musee d'Orsay in Paris

Gabrielle with a Rose
1911

Musee d'Orsay in Paris

Tilla Durieux
1914

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Bust of Madame Renoir

Polychromed cement
Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Danseuse (Dancer)
1874
Oil on canvas, 142.5 x 94.5 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. - Widener Collection

Dance at Bougival
1883

The Museum of Fine Arts at Boston

Dance in the City
1883

Musee d'Orsay in Paris

Dance in the Country
1883

Musee d'Orsay in Paris

The Pont Neuf, Paris
1872
Oil on canvas, 75 x 94cm
National Gallery of Art at Washington D.C. - Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection

Path Leading to the High Grass
1875

Musee d'Orsay in Paris

Oarsmen at Chatou
1879
Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 100.3 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

The Canoeists' Luncheon
1879-1880
Oil on canvas, 55.1 x 65.9 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago

Place Clichy
1880

Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge

Near the Lake
1880

Art Institute of Chicago

The Luncheon of the Boating Party
1881
Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 172.7 cm
Phillips Memorial Gallery, Washington, DC. Pride of the Phillips Collection, it was bought from the artist in 1881, and remained in Durand-Ruel's private collection until 1923, when his sons sold it to Duncan Phillips.

According to Renoir himself it was towards 1883 that there came a break in his work and he felt that he had reached the end of Impressionism, but a change of style is already discernible in this large painting of 1881. His earlier picture of canotiers at lunch arrived at a balance between Impressionist technique and subject interest; here style is subordinate to genre, or is altered to suit its purposes. There is definite outline where formerly there was the surrounding ambience of light. The memory of the aristocratic fete champetre that gave a lingering flagrance to earlier open-air groups has not entirely vanished but a sharper impression of slightly vulgar jollity tends to dispel it. In the wealth of detail and incident something of the unity that is so admirable a feature of Impressionism in general is lost. But there is also much to admire: the fascinating glimpse of the river; the still-life with its richness of fruit and wine; the varied poses and expressions of the party. Such as large work was of necessity painted in the studio but Renoir was already coming to the conclusion, contrary to his earlier practice, that painting direct from nature had many drawbacks compared to studio work --- that it made compositions impossible and soon fell into monotony. The work of Monet and Pissarro might disprove this assertion as a generality but it served to give Renoir a fresh individual impetus.

Rocky Crags at l'Estaque (Rochers a l'Estaque)
1882
Oil on canvas, 66 x 80.5 cm

By the Seashore
1883

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Bouquet of Spring Flowers (Spring Bouquet)
1866
Oil on canvas, 101 x 79cm
Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Still Life with Bouquet
1871
Oil on canvas, 73.3 x 58.9 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

Roses et jasmin dans un vase de Delft
1881
Oil on canvas, 81.5 x 65 cm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Fruits from the Midi
1881

Art Institute of Chicago

Strawberries
1905
Oil on canvas, 28 x 46cm
Musee de l'Orangerie at Paris

In the meadow

Feeding

Young Boy with a Cat
1869

Musee d'Orsay in Paris

A Morning Ride in the Bois de Boulogne
1873
Oil on canvas, 261 x 226cm
Kunsthalle at Hamburg

La loge (The Theater Box)
1874
Oil on canvas, 80 x 63.5 cm
Courtauld Institute Galleries, University of London

This masterpiece, painted when Renoir was thirty-three and shown in the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874, can be regarded simply as a glimpse of contemporary life but is in a sense portraiture also. Renoir's brother Edmond posed for the man, the girl was a well-known Montmartre model nicknamed `Nini gueule en raie'.

Renoir had already been working in close accord with Monet at La Grenouillere but in this instance made no special effort at Impressionist innovation, such as might convey the impression of a theatre by the treatment of light. Nor did he have any scruple about using black, on which Impressionist theory frowned, deriving its utmost density from Edmond's evening dress and opera-glasses and Nini's righly stripped attire. All his appreciation of feminine charm of feature appears in the eyes, the mobile mouth and delicate skin of his female model contrasted with the countenance of Edmond in shadow. In spite of the beauty and luxurious character of the painting it found no buyer and Renoir by his own account was only too glad to dispose of it to the dealer known as le pere Martin for 425 francs. He was adamant in not taking less as this was the exact amount needed to pay rent due and he had no other resource. But Nini of La Loge was the first of the long series of portraits that Renoir was able to invest with an inimitable charm.

The Parisian (La Parisienne)
1874
Oil on canvas, 160 x 106 cm
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Image Lady at the Piano
1875

Art Institute of Chicago

La Premiere Sortie
1876

National Gallery, London

There is a remarkable difference in technique between Renoir's two pictures of the occupants of a theatre-box, La Loge and La Premiere Sortie (as the latter is now entitled). In the intervening period Renoir worked with Monet at Argenteuil and, for the time being at least, had become thoroughly conditioned to Impressionist methods and outlook. The precision of drawing has gone to be replaced by a shimmering envelope of color that surrounds the figures and gives them an actuality in space that the other picture does not display. This of course is a difference of aim rather than aesthetic quality. The rich blacks have gone, depth of color being provided by ultramarine. But the Impressionist way of seeing concerned not only color but what it might be optically possible to see at one particular moment. In focussing on one object the eye is only vaguely aware of others behind and around and thus Renoir assumes that attention is fixed on the young girl on her first evening out and that the spectator has only a confused and sidelong impression of the rest of the theatre and other members of the audience. There is another advantage in the way this is presented. Something of the excitement of the occasion is conveyed by the broken color and the figures dimly visible. The calm of La Loge has no such suggestion.

Renoir's application of Impressionist ideas to figure compositions has other instances about the same time in La Balancoire (Louvre) and Le Moulin de la Galette. La Premiere Sortie first belonged to Count Armand Doria and was included in the Doria sale of 1899 under the less appropriate title of Cafe-Concert.

Nini in the Garden
1876
Oil on canvas, 24 3/8 x 20 in
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Renoir rarely worked on one canvas at a time, and Nini in the Garden, signed but not dated, belongs to the period immediately before work on the Moulin de la Galette began in earnest. Inspired by Monet's work at Argenteuil, Renoir had been experimenting since the early 1870s with the motif of young women in the garden: in size, , and orientation, Nini in the Garden may be loosely grouped with Woman with a Black Dog, 1874 (formerly, Charles Clore Collection, London) and the radiant Umbrella of 1878 (sale, Christie's, May 11,1988, lot 15). These paintings are identical in size (24 by 20 inches); each explores the problem of integrating the clothed female figure in ambient daylight and achieving a harmony between elegant Parisienne and exuberant nature. Even more closely related is Young Girl on the Beach, which was probably painted at the same session: there, the model, Nini Lopez, sits on a similar garden chair wearing identical dress, but her presence is more assertive, now the chief element in the composition. Both paintings convey the delight that Renoir experienced in the large garden at the rue Cortot. Georges Riviere, who had accompanied Renoir in his search for the ideal Montmartre studio, recalled that "as soon as Renoir entered the house, he was charmed by the view of this garden, which looked like a beautiful abandoned park. Once we had passed through the narrow hallway, we stood before a vast uncultivated lawn dotted with poppies, convolvulus, and daisies." Beyond this, Riviere continued, lay a beautiful allee planted with trees stretching the full length of the garden--this was the view that Renoir used for his celebrated painting The Swing (Musee d'Orsay, Paris)--and at the end was a fruit and vegetable patch with dense bushes and poplar trees. It is difficult to know exactly which corner of the garden is represented in this painting, although Nini does appear to be sitting at the edge of an untidy lawn.

In Nini in the Garden, which should be dated around 1875-76, Renoir's handling is energized, nervous, and experimental. He makes no attempt to unify the paint surface of his canvas: ridges of rich impasto sit alongside areas of barely covered ground. His color is nonetheless applied in dabs and strokes of varying touch, appropriate to the forms they describe. Thus, the leafy bushes in the background are a mosaic of greens, browns, and ochers; the sky in the upper left a series of blue strokes placed over the greens--the most obvious of Renoir's borrowings from Monet. Nini herself is painted more emphatically, the violet blue of her hat and underskirt the densest blocks of color in the composition. Nini's costume is very similar to, if not identical to, the one she wears in Departure from the Conservatory. Comparison helps establish the design of Nini's ensemble as it appears in Nini in the Garden: dark tunic over a light pinafore dress, with dark underskirt, this last element just visible through the grass and plants.

It is clear, however, that costume is of little concern to Renoir here. His chief interest is to record the sunlight as it filters through bushes and trees onto the diminutive and fashionably dressed Parisienne. He had already investigated these effects on the nude; Nini in the Garden marks an early stage in such treatment of the dressed figure. Somewhat tentatively, Renoir painted the reflections of foliage on Nini's face and the larger shadows on her dress. Her golden brown tresses are overwhelmed by the greens and browns of the background foliage; the forms of her dress dissolve in the dappled light and shadow.

Those elements of Renoir's luminist vocabulary that would cause such outrage in 1877--his colored shadows, the violet tonality of his outdoor scenes--are present in this early example: for example, the line of chartreuse that defines Nini's cheek and chin as well as the mauve patches of shadow on her dress. Although his plein-air painting still owed much to Monet, ... in the paintings he made in the garden of the rue Cortot, Renoir developed what Theodore Duret would consider his most striking contribution to Impressionism: depicting the human figure in the endlessly changing, mobile light of nature. Renoir's exploration of light dancing over the human figure would achieve full expression in The Swing and Moulin de la Galette. In Nini in the Garden such effects are rendered a little hesitantly, but with the daring of experiment...

A Girl With a Watering Can
1876
Oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Swing
1876
Oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm
Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Le Moulin de la Galette
1876
Oil on canvas, 131 x 175 cm
Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Renoir delighted in `the people's Paris', of which the Moulin de la Galette near the top of Montmartre was a characteristic place of entertainment, and his picture of the Sunday afternoon dance in its acacia-shaded courtyard is one of his happiest compositions. In still-rural Montmartre, the Moulin, called `de la Galette' from the pancake which was its speciality, had a local clientele, especially of working girls and their young men together with a sprinkling of artists who, as Renoir did, enjoyed the spectacle and also found unprofessional models. The dapple of light is an Impressionist feature but Renoir after his bout of plein-air landscape at Argenteuil seems especially to have welcomed the opportunity to make human beings, and especially women, the main components of picture. As Manet had done in La Musique aux Tuileries he introduced a number of portraits.

The girl in the striped dress in the middle foreground (as charming of any of Watteau's court ladies) was said to be Estelle, the sister of Renoir's model, Jeanne. Another of Renoir's models, Margot, is seen to the left dancing with the Cuban painter, Cardenas. At the foreground table at the right are the artist's friends, Frank Lamy, Norbert Goeneutte and Georges Riviere who in the short-lived publication L'Impressionniste extolled the Moulin de la Galette as a page of history, a precious monument of Parisian life depicted with rigorous exactness. Nobody before him had thought of capturing some aspect of daily life in a canvas of such large dimensions.

Renoir painted two other versions of the subject, a small sketch now in the Ordrupgard Museum, near Copenhagen and a painting smaller than the Louvre version in the John Hay Whitney collection. It is a matter of some doubt whether the latter or the Louvre version was painted on the spot. Riviere refers to a large canvas being transported to the scene though it would seem obvious that so complete a work as the picture in the Louvre would in any case have been finished in the studio.

Young Women Talking
1878

Madame Charpentier and Her Children Paul (at her knee) and Georgette
1878

Proust compared this work with `Titian at his best'.

Jugglers at the Cirque Fernando
1879

The Art Institute of Chicago

The Laundress
1880

The Art Institute of Chicago

On the Terrace
1881
Oil on canvas, 100.5 x 81 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Collection

Les Parapluies
1883
Oil on canvas, 180 x 115 cm
National Gallery, London

This picture, as well as being a delight in itself, illustrates a transitional aspect of Renoir's art. It shows a new attention to design as a well-defined scheme of arrangement, the umbrellas forming a linear pattern of a far from Impressionist kind, the linear element also being stressed in the young modiste's bandbox, the little girl's hoop and the umbrella handles. In this care for definite form, apparent also in the figures at the left, one can see a discontent with Impressionism and a search for a firmer basis of style that would date the work to about 1883-4, after his journeyings abroad and the revision he brought into his ideas. It is unlikely that it preceded the Muslim Festival of 1881 and more probably represents a subsequent reaction.

The Cezanne-like treatment of the tree at the back also suggests it was painted after Renoir stayed with him at L'Estaque in 1882. The children and the lady with them are more indicative of the style of the 'seventies than the rest of the picture which may well have passed through stages of repainting over a period. The charm of the whole is nevertheless able to overcome the feeling of slight discrepancy that may result from close examination.

Durand-Ruel bought the picture from Renoir in 1892 and sold it to Sir Hugh Lane, in whose bequest it came to the Tate Gallery in 1917. It was transferred to the National Gallery in 1935.

Jeunes filles au piano (Girls at the Piano)
1892
Oil on canvas, 116 x 90 cm
Musee d'Orsay, Paris

La famille de l'artiste
1896
Oil on canvas, 173 x 140 cm

La promenade
1906
Oil on canvas, 165 x 129 cm