Young Woman with Rose (Jeune fille à la rose)

Young Woman with Rose, 1917, belongs to Renoir's final group of figure paintings with floral accessories, combining his two great subjects—the female figure and the flower—within a single intimate composition. The rose held particular symbolic significance in his late thinking as an emblem of natural beauty and femininity, and pairing a young woman with a rose created a visual rhyme between the warmth of the face and the warmth of the flower. This Barnes Foundation canvas from 1917 is among the last major works he produced before his death in December 1919.

The rose is painted as a concentrated warm colour accent—deep pinks and reds—against the softer, more diffuse warmth of the face and hair. Renoir's very late brushwork here shows characteristically free, loose application with the figure emerging from warm colour atmosphere rather than precise form-construction.