Marguerite-Thérèse (Margot) Berard (1874–1956)

Marguerite Bérard, called Margot, was five when Renoir painted her in 1879. Her father, Paul Bérard, was a diplomat and banker who had met the painter only the year before and was fast becoming one of his steadiest buyers. The story attached to this canvas comes from inside the family. Margot's nephew later recalled that a disagreeable lesson with her German tutor had brought her to tears, and that Renoir painted her to cheer her up. What you see is a small girl in a white pinafore over a dark dress, her fair hair brushed in with loose, quick strokes against a warm brown background, her lips parted and her eyes turned off to the side. Renoir wrote his name and the year 79 in the upper left corner. The portrait came to the Metropolitan Museum in 1960, in the bequest of the collector Stephen C. Clark.