Portrait of Madame Renoir

Renoir's 1885 Portrait of Madame Renoir depicts his wife Aline Charigot, whom he had met around 1880 and would marry in 1890. By 1885 Renoir was in the middle of his so-called 'Dry Period' — a phase of renewed attention to drawing and classical form prompted by dissatisfaction with Impressionism's dissolution of structure. The portrait of Aline belongs to this transitional moment, when Renoir was seeking a synthesis of Impressionist color with the discipline of Raphael and Ingres. Now in Philadelphia, the work documents both a personal relationship and a pivotal moment in his artistic development.

The portrait shows Renoir's transitional handling — more structured drawing and firmer modeling than his high Impressionist work, with color still warm and sensuous but applied with greater deliberation. Aline's full features are rendered with clear, tactile pleasure in the paint surface, the background relatively neutral to focus attention on the figure.