Young Woman with a Blue Choker

This 1888 portrait from the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon, painted during Renoir's so-called 'Ingres period' of the 1880s, shows a young woman distinguished by the blue ribbon at her throat — a single decorative accent that gives the painting its intimate focus. Throughout the 1880s Renoir pulled back from Impressionist dissolution of form, studying Raphael, Pompeian frescoes, and Ingres in a search for more solid draughtsmanship. Portraits like this one represent his synthesis of Impressionist colour warmth with renewed attention to contour and surface finish. The Lyon Museum's collection preserves an important group of such transitional Renoir portraits.

The painting shows Renoir's tighter, more deliberate brushwork of the Ingres period — the face and throat rendered with careful attention to modelling rather than Impressionist flicker. The blue choker serves as both compositional anchor and colour accent. The background is warm and loosely painted, contrasting with the more precise figure.