Madame Gaston Bernheim de Villers

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 'Madame Gaston Bernheim de Villers' (1901) is a portrait from his late series of wealthy patrons' wives — the Bernheim gallery was one of the most important dealers in Impressionist painting, and the Bernheim family's collection and commercial promotion of French avant-garde art made them central figures in the Parisian art world. Renoir's portrait of Madame Bernheim de Villers was both a personal and professional commission, his relationship with the Bernheim gallery securing him significant patronage.

Renoir renders Madame Bernheim de Villers with the warm, luminous technique of his late portrait style — the figure modeled with the soft, rounded handling and warm flesh tones that were his signature late manner, the fashionable woman's specific features and social presence captured with his characteristic combination of sensuous form and social distinction. His late palette in portrait subjects tends toward warm pinks, reds, and golden tones that gave his female subjects their characteristic glowing quality.