Description
Renoir shows a young girl stretched out full length on a grassy bank in the shade of tall trees, her head pillowed on her folded arms and her eyes closed as though she has drifted off in the afternoon warmth. She wears a wide straw hat, a dark blue bodice with long sleeves, and a loose rust orange skirt that falls in soft heavy folds against the green ground.
Behind her a dense screen of foliage in shifting greens and browns closes off the middle distance, broken only by a pale patch of sky and cloud in the upper corner. The brushwork is loose and unblended throughout, typical of the small, informal outdoor figure studies Renoir painted often in the early 1890s, when a girl resting alone in a garden or a field was one of his favourite subjects.
The painting is part of the collection of Kunstmuseum Basel. What is offered here is not that original but a faithful reproduction: a hand-painted oil version on canvas, recreated stroke by stroke by a professional painter, or an archival canvas print made with fade-resistant pigment inks, available in a range of sizes from close to the original small study up to a larger wall feature.
