Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919)
Enfant aux jouets, Gabrielle et Jean (Child with Toys, Gabrielle and the Artist’s Son, Jean)
1895–1896
Oil on canvas, 54.3 x 65.4 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Shown from about the waist up, a woman with pale, peachy skin and dark hair holds a blond, light-skinned child on her lap at a table as they play with several small toys in this horizontal painting. The portrait was painted with blended brushstrokes, giving the work a soft look. We look slightly down onto the pair, who are close to us as they nearly fill the composition. The woman sits at the far corner of the wooden table. Her black hair is pulled up and bangs frame her round face. She has rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and she smiles as she gazes down at the toy rooster she holds in her right hand, to our left. She wears a rose-pink, high necked garment with loose, long sleeves. Her other hand wraps around the torso of the child on her lap. The child faces our left in profile. Shaggy, strawberry-blond hair falls across his high forehead and down around the collar of his white shirt. He has a short, snub nose, flushed cheeks, and his coral-red lips are parted. He looks toward the toy rooster as he stands a doll up on the table with one hand. The doll has a white shirt, topaz-blue sash around the waist, and a red skirt, and three white sheep stand and lie on the table nearby. To our right, the wall behind the pair is patterned with loosely painted peachy-pink and white forms, presumably flowers, against a forest-green background. Vertical bands of smoke-gray to our left suggest drapes hanging from above. The artist signed the work in small red letters at the upper right corner: “Renoir.” (NGA)
See also:
• Renard, Gabrielle (1878-1959) | Renoir, Jean (1894-1979)