Description
Renoir paints himself close-up, wearing a broad straw hat and a loosely knotted white cravat over a grey-green jacket, set against a flat, glowing red background. His face is worked in warm ivory and rose, deeply lined, with pale, slightly hooded eyes that meet the viewer directly under the shadow of the brim.
Dated 1910, this self-portrait shows Renoir in his late sixties, painting through the arthritis that had already begun to stiffen his hands. The red ground is left almost bare in places, a bold, flat foil to the built-up modelling of the face, and the print is calibrated to keep that red saturated without letting it overpower the softer flesh tones.



