Portrait of a Young Woman (Portrait de jeune femme)

Portrait of a Young Woman of 1885 was painted at the heart of Renoir's so-called manière aigre — the dry, classicizing style he pursued in the mid-1880s after his Italian journey convinced him that Impressionism had sacrificed too much in the way of formal rigor and lasting pictorial construction. The portrait of 1885 shows the clearer outlines, more deliberate modeling, and reduced atmospheric painterliness that characterized this stylistic experiment, which he would largely abandon by the late 1880s after finding it too rigid and cold for his temperament. The mid-1880s represented the most sustained formal crisis of his career, and his portraits from this period are among the most interesting documents of a great painter actively wrestling with the question of what post-Impressionist figure painting could be. The Barnes Foundation's acquisition of a 1885 portrait for its collection reflected Albert Barnes's interest in documenting not only Renoir's most characteristic warm Impressionist work but also the full arc of his development, including the formal experiments that temporarily pulled him away from the painterly values that defined his greatness.

The 1885 style shows a firmer line and more careful modelling than his Impressionist peak. The face is constructed through subtle tonal gradation rather than visible brushstrokes. The background is warm and relatively plain, focusing all attention on the figure. Colour is warm but more restrained than his typical period work.