Madame Monet liest Le Figaro

In the early 1870s Renoir often took the short train ride out to Argenteuil, on the Seine northwest of Paris, to paint alongside his friend Claude Monet. The two men were close and frequently broke. Here Renoir paints Monet's wife, Camille, stretched out reading Le Figaro, the Paris daily. It is an everyday, unposed moment, and Renoir treats the indoor scene with the loose, light touch of open-air painting, the whites of her dress dissolving into the sofa. These were the years right around 1874, when Renoir, Monet and their circle held the first Impressionist exhibition and drew more mockery than sales. The little blue-and-white bowl on the table is a nod to the Japanese objects then in fashion among Paris painters.