Fanciulla bionda con rosa

Renoir painted this around 1915, near the end of a life shadowed by rheumatoid arthritis. He had moved south to Cagnes-sur-Mer for the mild air, his hands by now so deformed that an assistant had to place the brush between his fingers each time. The often-repeated story that it was strapped on is a myth. None of that strain shows in the picture. The model is Andrée Heuschling, nicknamed Dédée, a teenager who was his last model and whose fresh skin he loved to paint. He works her almost entirely in warm reds and soft rose tones, so that the flesh and the flower are nearly the same colour. Dédée would go on to marry his son Jean and act in the early films that made Jean Renoir a great director.