Cleveland Museum of Art

Romaine Lacaux

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Date

1864

Medium

oil on fabric

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This painting may be Renoir's earliest signed canvas. Its sensitive display of color and light communicates an ideal of delicate, youthful beauty. The luminous tones of the background drapery and of the child's white blouse result from the artist's careful observation of reflected light and color on translucent materials. The delicate nuances of color, particularly in the young girl's face, reveal Renoir's previous training as a decorator of porcelain. He painted this portrait, commissioned by the vacationing Lacaux family, during his stay at an artist's colony in the village of Barbizon, near Paris. The son of a poor tailor from Limoges, Renoir began his artistic career at age 13 as an apprentice to a porcelain painter.

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