Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919)
Portrait de Julie Manet (Portrait of Julie Manet)
1894
Oil on canvas, 55 × 46 cm
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Like Claude Monet and Stéphane Mallarmé, Renoir was close to Berthe Morisot, who dated the beginning of their friendship to 1886. With her husband, Eugène Manet, she asked this distinguished portraitist to paint their daughter in 1887 (Julie Manet or Child with Cat, Paris, Musée d’Orsay). A real bond of affection now developed between Renoir and his model, so much so that, after Eugène’s death in 1892, Morisot asked him to join the family council she had created to watch over her daughter’s welfare in case something happened to her too. He painted this bust-length portrait of Julie at the age of sixteen in 1894. The young woman poses in the apartment in Rue Weber where she and her mother had recently moved in. Against a freely sketched gray ground, Julie, seen in half profile, shows a sad expression that recalls her recent loss and, for today’s viewers, heralds another: the death of her mother from pneumonia on March 2, 1895. (Marmottan)
See also:
• Manet, Julie (1878-1966)