Las dos hermanas

By 1889 Renoir had come out the far side of a hard experiment. For a few years in the mid-1880s he had cooled his color and hardened his outlines, chasing the crisp drawing of the old masters, and many who loved his earlier warmth felt he had lost it. This picture of two young women belongs to the recovery that followed, the flesh turning soft and rosy again, the line easing. That same year Paris filled with visitors for the Exposition Universelle and its brand-new Eiffel Tower, a spectacle Renoir kept clear of. He stayed with the close domestic subjects he trusted, and this canvas has spent its life in private hands.