Girl at the Foot of a Tree (Fillette au pied d'un arbre)

Girl at the Foot of a Tree was painted in 1914, when Renoir was seventy-three and severely incapacitated by arthritis that had deformed his hands into rigid claws. That he continued to produce figure paintings of this quality in such circumstances — reportedly strapping brushes between his fingers — is one of the remarkable facts of his late career. The motif of a child seated or standing at the base of a tree carried a long tradition in French painting, from the fêtes galantes of Watteau through the plein-air studies of Corot and the Barbizon painters, connecting human figure to natural setting in an organic relationship Renoir deeply believed in. His Provençal olive grove at Les Collettes provided the specific setting: ancient, gnarled trees whose silvery foliage and warm bark offered a natural backdrop for the small, warm-toned figure. The painting belongs to a group of 1914 canvases that are among his last major works before increasing physical limitations reduced his output substantially. The Barnes Foundation collection preserves it as evidence of his continuing ambition and visual intelligence in the most physically difficult period of his life.

The tree trunk provides a vertical compositional anchor for the small figure. Renoir models the child with his characteristic warm flesh tones while the tree bark is painted with more textured, rougher strokes. The surrounding landscape dissolves into freely applied green and ochre passages.