Pierre-Auguste Renoir - The Daughters of Durand-Ruel [1882]

In August 1882 Renoir completed a series of portraits of the five Durand-Ruel children at the request of their father Paul Durand-Ruel, a forward-thinking Parisian art dealer who, early on, championed and supported the Impressionists. In this charming double portrait Marie-Thérèse, age fourteen, and her younger sister Jeanne posed for Renoir in the garden of their summer cottage in Dieppe, France, where the family was on holiday. Painted entirely out-of-doors, the portrait retains the vibrant palette and vigorous open brushwork of Renoir's "pure" Impressionist paintings of the later 1870s. The artist gives way to the transforming effects of the dappled summer sun filtering through the chestnut trees. The girls' white summer dresses are awash in delicate shadows that the artist describes in purple, blue, pink, and yellow tones and touches of white impasto. Within his Impressionist technique, where light seems to dissolve matter, Renoir manages to maintain accuracy in his depiction. He faithfully records details of setting and dress, such as the sisters' delicate laced shoes, the pleats of Marie-Thérèse's skirt, and the black ribbon at Jeanne's neck.

 

[Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia - Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 65.4 cm]

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