1877 (ca.), Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Young Woman in Black -- Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena)
From the museum label: Though the identity of this painting's sitter is unknown, she embodies Renoir's ideal parisienne: young, pretty, and smartly dressed. In the mid-1870s, working toward his celebrated multifigure composition Ball at Le Moulin de la Galette (today in the Musée d'Orsay), Renoir produced dozens of small studies like this one. He often gave them away to his friends, perhaps including Eugène Murer, this painting's first owner, who described it as "modiste à la marguerite, adorable petite tête" (dressmaker with a daisy, adorable little head).
1877 (ca.), Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Young Woman in Black -- Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena)
From the museum label: Though the identity of this painting's sitter is unknown, she embodies Renoir's ideal parisienne: young, pretty, and smartly dressed. In the mid-1870s, working toward his celebrated multifigure composition Ball at Le Moulin de la Galette (today in the Musée d'Orsay), Renoir produced dozens of small studies like this one. He often gave them away to his friends, perhaps including Eugène Murer, this painting's first owner, who described it as "modiste à la marguerite, adorable petite tête" (dressmaker with a daisy, adorable little head).