Reclining Nude (Femme nue couchée)

Reclining Nude (Femme nue couchée), 1910, belongs to Renoir's late horizontal bather series at the Barnes Foundation. The reclining nude drawing on the Venetian Renaissance tradition of Giorgione and Titian was a subject he had pursued since the 1880s, and by 1910 he was producing the most freely handled and warmest versions of this type. The horizontal format—filling the canvas width with the recumbent figure—was both compositionally ambitious and physically challenging given his arthritis, making these late reclining nudes remarkable achievements of technical endurance.

The horizontal nude figure is painted with Renoir's most expansive late brushwork—long, flowing strokes describing the body's length and curves. Warm flesh tones glow against a loosely applied background, with the figure's contours softly dissolving into the surrounding setting rather than being sharply defined.