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Pierre-Auguste Renoir was one of the first and most important of the Impressionists, and his luscious, sensual feathered brushstrokes remain iconic almost a century and a half after he began to paint alongside his friend Claude Monet.

The Height of Talent
Throughout his career, Renoir explored various themes in his work, but as he commented in the early 1890s "in literature as well as in painting, talent is shown only by the treatment of the feminine figures". These four works beautifully illustrate Renoir's different treatment of the female form.

Creative Studies
Renoir was a great admirer of the sculptural work of Aristide Maillol, executing numerous studies after his sculptures. Their relationship allowed Renoir to study the female form through the eyes of another artist. Femme nue et pommes depicts the nude almost as part of a still life, with the ripe fleshy apples in the foreground echoing the model's feminine curves. Meanwhile, the fluidity of lines and shifting light in Trois baigneuses shows three very animated bathers. Inspired by Raphael's frescoes in Rome, this painting comes from a series of works in which Renoir portrayed the female nude in outdoor settings. In contrast, his portrait of Gabrielle à l'écharpe noire takes a more mature and robust tone. Hired to help Renoir's wife, Aline, whilst she was pregnant with their second child, Gabrielle went on to stay with the Renoir family for over 25 years and become one of Renoir's favourite models. Be it in the tantalising fruit depicted in his still life, the concentration in Gabrielle's eyes, or indeed the almost abstracted brushstrokes that coalesce to form an outdoor scene, these works provide us with fascinating, sometimes raw insights into the working techniques of the great artist.