Coco en chapeau de paille

Coco en chapeau de paille (Coco in a Straw Hat, 1904), at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, shows Renoir's youngest son Claude wearing the summer hat that became a recurring prop in his depictions of the child. By 1904 Coco was three years old and already a veteran model for his father's brush. The straw hat — one of Renoir's favourite accessory types, providing a warm golden note that complemented his flesh-tone palette — appears in multiple depictions of the boy from this period.

The straw hat's woven texture and golden warmth create a luminous frame around the child's face, with Renoir handling the hat's material as carefully as the face itself. His technique builds the hat's colour through warm ochres and pale yellows that echo the child's blonde hair and warm skin tones, integrating the accessory into the overall chromatic warmth of the portrait.