Portrait of Ambroise Vollard in a Red Headscarf

Ambroise Vollard was the dealer who bet on the difficult painters. In 1895 he had given Cezanne a first real show when almost no one would touch him, and he handled Renoir too. Renoir painted this around the turn of the century, catching Vollard in profile with a red scarf knotted at the back of his head, a quiet nod to where he came from, the French island of Reunion out in the Indian Ocean, far from the Paris art trade. The two men clearly enjoyed each other. Renoir would paint Vollard more than once, later even dressing him up as a matador. By this point the painter's hands were stiffening with the arthritis that would eventually cripple them, though you would never guess it from the ease of the brushwork.