Description
A bather stands with both hands raised to arrange her auburn hair, one breast bared, her expression relaxed and unguarded. Beside her a red polka-dot cloth is piled over a straw hat, and pink and white drapery spills across the foreground; dense green forest fills the rest of the canvas.
Painted in 1893 and held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the large canvas (92.4 by 74 cm) is one of Renoir’s best-known bather compositions, its warm flesh set against a wall of green broken only by the red-dotted cloth. The print keeps that red sharp and clear, since it is the one strong colour accent anchoring the whole composition.



