Portrait of Alfred Bérard with His Dog

In April 1881 the Impressionists opened their sixth group show in Paris without Renoir. He was in Algeria, partly to see the country Delacroix had painted, and by the autumn he was in Italy in front of Raphael and the wall paintings from Pompeii, writing that he had gone about as far as he could with the way he had been working. This portrait belongs to the months between the two journeys. Alfred Berard was a nephew of Paul Berard, a banker and diplomat who met Renoir in 1878 and became the steadiest patron he had, putting him up at the family manor at Wargemont near Dieppe and ordering portraits, flower panels and paintings to go above the doors. The commissions ran on for years, and the Berard portraits are now scattered between Philadelphia, New York and Williamstown in Massachusetts.