The Garden in the Rue Cortot, Montmartre

In 1876 the top of Montmartre was still half countryside, with windmills, kitchen gardens, and lanes that turned to mud in the rain, all just above the roofs of Paris. That spring Renoir rented a shabby house at number 12 rue Cortot, largely because it stood a few steps from the Moulin de la Galette, the open-air dance hall he wanted to paint. The tangled garden behind the house became his outdoor studio, and this tall canvas records it, with red dahlias flaring out of a jumble of grass and creepers. A visitor to the Impressionist show of 1877 singled out exactly those dahlias. Through the same summer, in this same overgrown plot, he worked up the dancers of the Bal du moulin de la Galette and the couple on the swing. The house at 12 rue Cortot is now the Musee de Montmartre, and its replanted garden still carries his name.