Sailor Boy (Portrait of Robert Nunès)

In August 1883 Renoir was at Yport, a fishing village under the chalk cliffs of Normandy, working on a commission. Alfred Nunès, a Paris bank employee and a cousin of the painter Camille Pissarro, wanted portraits of his two children, Aline and Robert. On the 21st Renoir wrote to a friend that he was stuck with two brats who were driving him mad. None of that shows here. Robert stands on the rocks at low tide, one hand on his hip, a long stick in the other. Sailor suits were what well-off parents dressed their sons in at the time, and this one is deep cobalt blue, with a gold anchor on the sleeve, a white handkerchief in the pocket and a red pompom on the cap. His sister was painted the same summer, standing under a parasol.