Portrait of Mademoiselle Marie Murer (Portrait de Mademoiselle Marie Murer)

Marie Murer was the daughter of Eugène Murer, a pastry chef and passionate Impressionist collector who was one of the movement's early amateur supporters. Murer collected works by Renoir, Pissarro, Monet, and Sisley, and in return received portraits of himself and his daughter. This 1877 Barnes Foundation portrait of young Marie shows the close, reciprocal social networks that sustained the Impressionist movement through its financially difficult early years. Painted during Renoir's Impressionist peak, the portrait is intimate and direct, with none of the formal conventionality of commissioned bourgeois portraiture.

Renoir paints Marie in a high-key palette with warm rose and cream tones. The face shows his characteristic attentiveness to the specific physiognomy of the child — not idealized but affectionately observed. The background is loosely indicated to keep focus on the face. Brushwork is fluid and warm throughout.