William Sisley

People picture Renoir in sunlight, dappled gardens, dancing crowds, warm skin. This is Renoir before any of that. In 1864 he was 23, still training, still painting the dark, sober, Salon-approved portraits expected of every ambitious young French artist. The sitter is William Sisley, a businessman born in France to an English family, and the father of Alfred Sisley, who would soon become one of Renoir's fellow Impressionists. The commission seems to have been partly a favour, a way to help the struggling Renoir with money. He signed and dated it in the upper corner, and it was accepted at the Salon of 1865 alongside another of his paintings, a summer evening scene that has since been lost.