Parisiennes habillées en Algériennes

Renoir painted this in 1872, the year after the Paris Commune fell and the city was still recovering from a brutal siege. Rather than paint any of that, he staged a fantasy of Parisian models draped as women of an Algerian harem, an open homage to Eugène Delacroix, whose 'Women of Algiers' Renoir called the most beautiful picture in the world. He had never been to Algeria himself. He submitted the canvas to the Salon that year and the jury rejected it. One of the reclining women is Lise Tréhot, his companion and favourite model for years, and this was among the last pictures she sat for before she married another man and left his life.