Women & Figures Collection: Pierre-Auguste Renoir Oil Painting Reproductions

From the studio to the garden

The early figures are Parisian: milliners, actresses, women at a table or in a box at the theatre, painted in the flat north light of a studio. By the 1890s the setting moves outdoors and southwards, and the figure is placed among leaves and dappled sun, which suited a painter who never liked a hard edge.

Gabrielle Renard arrived in 1894 as nursemaid to Jean and became the model of the late years. She appears sewing, holding a rose, opening a blouse, playing with the children, and in a long series of half-length studies where the subject is simply warm flesh in warm light.

A palette built on warmth

Renoir's colour is overwhelmingly warm: rose, coral, gold, and greens that lean yellow. Two practical consequences follow. On a cream or terracotta wall these paintings merge with the wall and lose their glow, so a cooler or whiter wall serves them better. And in a north-facing room, where daylight is blue, a Renoir figure does something almost nothing else does: it warms the room.

Which room this collection suits

These are companionable pictures rather than statement pieces, which makes them unusually easy to place: a bedroom, a landing, a study, the wall beside a sofa. They tolerate being hung slightly higher than a portrait because the whole figure carries the composition. Sixty to ninety centimetres on the long side suits most walls; above a bed or a sideboard, measure the furniture and aim for half to two thirds of its width.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from the Portraits collection?

A portrait is about a named person. These figure paintings use a model as a subject: the same woman may appear in twenty canvases under no name at all. If you want a specific sitter, look in Portraits; if you want the light on a shoulder, look here.

Who is Gabrielle?

Gabrielle Renard, a cousin of Renoir's wife, joined the household in 1894 to help with the children and became his principal model for two decades. She is the dark-haired woman in a great many of the late works, and she is often named in the title.

Are these suitable for a shared room?

Most are, and that is worth checking before you buy. This collection is clothed figures and half-length studies. The frankly nude works are gathered separately under Bathers and Nudes, so you can choose deliberately rather than by accident.

What frame suits them?

Warm dark wood or a muted, knocked-back gold. Avoid bright gold leaf: against a palette already built on gold and rose it is gold on gold, and the painting loses its glow. Our framing guide goes through the options.