Description
Two young girls lean together over an album held open on the lap of the one in front, both absorbed in looking down at its pages. The girl in front wears a pink dress with a white lace collar and a straw hat crowned with small flowers and a large coral bow, her long blonde hair falling past her shoulders. Behind her, a dark-haired girl in a white dress and a wide hat trimmed with white lace and a red-orange ribbon looks over her companion’s shoulder.
Renoir sets the two figures against a plain grey wall and the pale wooden shutter of a window, keeping the background simple so the pink and white of the dresses, and the warm color of the hats, carry the composition. The quiet, shared attention of the two girls gives the scene an intimate, everyday charm.
This painting is available as a hand-painted oil reproduction or an archival canvas print, made to order in sizes true to the original proportions, held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
