Dark-Haired Woman

Renoir's Dark-Haired Woman, painted in 1903 and held at the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art in Japan, belongs to his late series of warm, sensuous female portraits that occupied much of his final two decades. By 1903 Renoir's hands were beginning to be affected by the rheumatoid arthritis that would eventually force him to paint with brushes strapped to his wrists, yet his ability to render the warmth and luminosity of female skin never diminished. The late portraits — often of Gabrielle Renard, his family's housekeeper and principal model — are among the most purely hedonistic works in the Western tradition.

Renoir builds the dark-haired figure with his characteristic feathery brushwork, applying warm reds, ochres, and creams to create a skin tone of extraordinary luminosity. The dark hair functions as a frame for the warm face, and the background is dissolved into soft warm tones that envelop the figure without containing her.