Description
Worked in soft pastel rather than oil, this portrait shows a young brunette girl seated in a red upholstered chair, her dark curly hair cut into a short fringe. She looks out with a faint, gentle smile, her hands resting together at the lower edge of the sheet, just visible above a wooden table or ledge.
Renoir builds the whole scene from short crosshatched strokes of chalk, the pale blue-green blouse dissolving into the yellow-green background behind her, with only the red of the chair breaking through at the right. The effect is hazy and tender, closer to breath on glass than to the crisp detail of his oil portraits.
This piece is offered as a hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas or as an archival giclee canvas print, a new reproduction made after the original pastel, which is held at the Musee d’Orsay and not the artwork itself.



