Portrait of Clémence Tréhot, known as Madame Jules Le Cœur

In 1866 Renoir was 25 and almost unknown, and much of his support came from a single family. Jules Le Cœur was an architect who had turned to painting, comfortable enough to keep an open house at Marlotte, a village on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest where painters gathered. Renoir stayed with the Le Cœurs, ate at their table and painted them. This is Clémence Tréhot, who had become Jules Le Cœur's companion, and whose younger sister Lise was Renoir's own model and love in these same years. So the portrait comes from inside a close circle rather than from a commission. She sits in dark clothing against a plain ground, painted with a directness Renoir would soon trade for looser, brighter handling.