Ambroise Vollard

By 1908 Renoir was living in the south of France, at Cagnes, his hands so twisted by rheumatoid arthritis that a brush often had to be wedged between his swollen fingers. That is the state he was in when he painted this portrait of Ambroise Vollard, the dealer who by then was selling most of his work. Vollard was a big, heavy man, teased in Paris for his bald head and heavy nose, and Renoir softens all of that. He shows him instead as a quiet connoisseur, turning a small statuette of a kneeling nude in his fingers and studying it. The figurine is by the sculptor Aristide Maillol, a living artist Vollard also promoted. The pose looks back to old Renaissance portraits of collectors examining a prized object.