Girls at the Piano

Girls at the Piano is an oil on canvas painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1892, during the late phase of his career, when he had moved beyond the early Impressionist years but kept his interest in light and loose, rapid brushwork. The scene shows two young women in a middle-class interior: one sits at the upright piano in a white dress with a blue sash, while the other stands beside her in a pink dress. The instrument, the sheet music and the bouquet of flowers create a calm domestic atmosphere, a sense of intimacy that Renoir handled with great gentleness.

Young girls at the piano were a recurring subject in his work. This version is linked to an informal commission for the Musée du Luxembourg, and it is one of the first in a group of variations that Renoir made in oil and pastel, with subtle changes in poses, details and degree of finish. In the sketches, such as the one in the Walter-Guillaume collection, the background is barely suggested, while the figures and their concentrated expressions already come close to the final picture.

Unlike Pissarro and Monet, who painted series meant to be shown together to study shifts of light and atmosphere, Renoir treated these repetitions as independent studies in composition. What makes the work engaging today is the blend of a commission, a patient exploration of form and an easy freshness of handling. According to the account given by Arsène Alexandre, Renoir kept working on the canvas until the very end, which helps explain the liveliness of its surface.

Painter

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Date

1892

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

1160 × 900 cm

Museum

Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Genre

genre art, portrait, figure painting

Depicts

bouquet, waist-length hair, sheet music, vase, dress, girl, drapery, upright piano

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