Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand

Renoir painted this in 1875, a hard year for him. His Impressionist canvases were barely selling, and that spring a group auction of the painters' work in Paris ended close to disaster, with pictures going for almost nothing. To stay afloat he took portrait commissions, and this is one of them: Adelphine Legrand, about six years old, the daughter of a friend. She stands with her hands clasped and a wary, careful look, on her best behaviour but glancing past the painter as if checking with a parent. He kept the room around her almost bare, so that the deep black of her pinafore, the blue scarf at her throat, and the green curtain behind her do all the work.