Cleveland Museum of Art

The Apple Seller

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Date

c. 1890

Medium

oil on fabric

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This painting depicts a young country girl offering apples to Renoir's wife, Aline. The boy in the straw hat may be the artist's nephew, Edmond, but the young girl with the ribbon in her hair has not been identified. Bathed in soft, dappled sunlight, the figures are united through the fluid brushstrokes that cover the canvas. The leaping dog provides an accent of humor and motion in an otherwise tranquil scene. The picture was probably completed at Essoyes, in eastern France. Using repetitive, soft, light-of-touch brushstrokes to form patches of color, Renoir creates a sense of dappled light that reflects on the ground and caresses the figures, giving the painting an ethereal, dreamlike quality.

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