Jeune fille au chapeau fleuri

The child was an object of meditation to Renoir. The freshness and gaiety of the young fascinated him, and indeed, the artist had an instinctive feeling for rendering the tenderness, the freshness and ingenuous charm of childhood. Michel Robida in his book on Renoir's child portraits comments upon the skill with which the artist handled the subject: 'He really loved painting any beautiful living creature, which is why his portraits of children are so moving. What is more, he knew how to hold their attention. He wasn't put off by the difficulty of keeping them relatively still; he was so prodigiously skilful in handling his brushes that he was able to seize their pose immediately' (Cited in F. Fosca, Renoir, London, 1961, p. 223).

Jeune fille au chapeau fleurie is less a portrait of a specific figure than an image of freshness, youth and charm reflecting the artist's interest in form and colour. Though still a figure painter per se, at this stage of his career Renoir was less interested in portraiture. The figure was now secondary to his personal artistic experiences and, as he declared, the model was 'only there to set me going, to permit me to dare things I should never have thought of inventing without her, and to put me on my feet again if I should venture too far.' (W. Gaunt, Renoir, Oxford, 1982, p. 120).

The late Franois Daulte confirmed the authenticity of this work on 18 July 1986, stating that it would be included in the second volume of the Catalogue raisonn de l'oeuvre peint de Renoir devoted to Les figures (1891-1905).