Young Woman in Blue, Bust (Jeune femme en corsage bleu, buste)

Young Woman in Blue, Bust, 1911, belongs to the Barnes Foundation's large group of costumed bust portraits from Renoir's late Cagnes period. The choice of blue for the woman's blouse or corsage was unusual for a painter so committed to warm colour, and may reflect a deliberate chromatic challenge—building warm, luminous flesh tones against a cool blue ground. Barnes collected this alongside his warm-toned figure studies, documenting the range of colour environments Renoir explored for his figures even in his predominantly warm late palette.

The cool blue of the corsage creates an unusual chromatic context for Renoir's characteristic warm flesh modelling. The blue-flesh contrast is sharper than his usual warm-warm combinations, and he compensates by making the flesh tones particularly warm and luminous to maintain the figure's chromatic vitality against the cooler clothing.