Child with Toys - Gabrielle and the Artist's Son, Jean

This intimate 1895 National Gallery of Art painting shows Gabrielle Renard — the young woman from Essoyes who became the Renoir family's nanny and one of Renoir's most frequent models in his final decades — playing with the artist's son Jean (later the celebrated filmmaker Jean Renoir). The domestic, intimate character of the subject is typical of Renoir's home life at Montmartre and later Cagnes, where Gabrielle was a constant presence. Jean Renoir later wrote extensively about this childhood world in his memoir of his father. This painting is both a family record and a superb example of Renoir's ability to combine figure painting and interior genre.

Renoir uses warm, closely harmonized tones of rose, cream, and pale blue. Gabrielle's dark hair and the child's fair colouring create a natural contrast. The toys in the foreground are rendered with affectionate detail. The brushwork is fluid and warm, the composition intimate and frontal without being stilted.