Leaving the Conservatory (La Sortie du conservatoire)

In the late 1870s Renoir was still short of money and often painted his friends because he could not pay professional models. The young people crowding this doorway are his own bohemian circle, arranged to look like a chance encounter outside the Paris Conservatoire, the city's main music school. Watch the small drama he builds from body language: one man nudges his companion toward a young woman holding a rolled sheet of music, and the glances do the rest. The canvas is nearly two metres wide, unusually large for Renoir at this date, which suggests he hoped to show it at the official Salon rather than with his fellow Impressionists. Its first owner was the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, a friend from those same Paris cafes.