Petite fille avec sa poupée

Towards the end of the 19th Century Renoir began to limit his portraiture mostly to models taken from his own household, whom he often painted on a smaller scale than he had previously used for his society portraits. Throughout the last decades of his life, he became increasingly interested in achieving a sense of casual, spontaneous naturalism that can be seen in informal portrait studies like Petite fille avec sa poupée. Edmond, the artist's son, recalls his father's approach to painting these subjects: "When he paints a portrait he asks his model to behave normally, to sit as she usually sits, to dress as she usually dresses, so that nothing smacks of constraint or artificial preparation" (quoted in C.B. Baily, Renoir's Portraits, New Haven, 1997, p. 20).

At the very heart of Renoir's figure painting was the emphasis on natural light which he gave precedence over context. By posing the sitter, against a neutral and mostly abstracted background, he was able to eliminate connotations of narrative. This modern treatment of the portrait subject allowed him to concentrate on the handling of the brushwork and to emphasize the luminous quality of the paint. The palette of Petite fille avec sa poupée is typical of his paintings of this period. Its jewel tones of pink, ochre and green are punctuated with touches of luminous white. Renoir enjoyed working with young models and portraits of his patrons' children had comprised a large portion of his portrait production in the previous decades. The tender manner in which the young female portrait is posed, cuddling her doll, underscores the sense of intimacy to the scene. Furthermore, the provenance of this work speaks to its thoughtful execution – having been lovingly cherished in the same private French collection for almost a century.