Strawberries and Almonds (Fraises et amandes)

Strawberries and Almonds, 1897, is a small, concentrated still life from the Barnes Foundation's Renoir holdings, painted during a decade when he was also producing major figure compositions including his Bathers series. Still-life works occupied a subordinate position in his hierarchy but allowed him to explore colour and texture in an intimate format, and strawberries with their intense reds were a natural subject for an artist so drawn to saturated warm colours. The pairing of fruit with nuts creates a traditional vanitas-adjacent still life within the Impressionist tradition of direct, sensory observation.

The vivid red of the strawberries is built through varied strokes of crimson, carmine, and rose, with small green sepals providing complementary accents. The almonds and dish offer neutral tonal notes that give the berries full chromatic prominence. The cloth beneath is loosely stroked in warm white and cream.