Fernand Halphen als Kind

Renoir painted this boy in 1880, dressing him in a blue sailor suit and giving him sharp, clear outlines, a sign that he was already drifting away from soft Impressionism toward the firmer drawing of his next years. The child was Fernand Halphen, son of a wealthy Parisian banking family, and he grew up to become a composer who studied with Gabriel Fauré and Jules Massenet. Commissions like this reached Renoir through well-connected hostesses who liked to pass him around their circles. The Halphens themselves seem not to have thought much of the result. At some point the family simply handed the painting to the boy's former governess.