Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919)
Jeune femme espagnole avec guitare (Young Spanish Woman with Guitar)
1898
Oil on canvas, 55.6 x 65.2 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington
A young woman with pale, peachy skin and flushed cheeks sits facing our right in profile as she plays a guitar in this horizontal painting. The scene is painted with blended strokes, giving it a soft look and making some of the details indistinct. At the center of the composition, the guitar rests against the woman’s shoulder so it almost spans the width of the painting. The instrument has a caramel-brown body, and the dark brown neck lightens to slate gray by the sound hole. The woman’s eyes are lowered as she looks toward her left hand, her long fingers pinning the strings along the fretboard. She plucks the strings with her other hand. Her hair is covered in a red headscarf tied at the nape of her neck. One end rests on her left shoulder, farther from us, and the other hangs down her back. A low, flat-topped, black, brimmed hat sits atop the scarf. The woman’s features are delicate, and her pink lips are parted. She wears a gold chain with an oval pendant around her neck. Her jacket is gold with a pattern loosely painted with dabs of lapis blue, butter yellow, and rose pink. A yellow ribbon or band is tied to the neck of the guitar and slung over her shoulder. The indistinct space behind her is painted with strokes of moss green, goldenrod yellow, and a few swipes of marigold orange near her face. The artist signed and dated the painting in brown in the lower right corner: “Renoir.98.” (NGA)