Mulher Tocando Violão

By 1897 Renoir had drifted away from the flickering outdoor scenes of his Impressionist years. In his mid-fifties now, he was looking back to the old masters he loved in the Louvre, the warm flesh of Titian and Rubens and the soft light of Corot, and painting calm, rounded figures in the studio. This young woman bending over her guitar belongs to a small group of guitar players he made in these years. Nothing in her world is modern, just a plush red armchair and a loose white dress, the pose itself borrowed from centuries of earlier painting. The museum in Lyon bought the canvas in 1901, while Renoir was still alive and working, early for a public gallery to take in the work of a living Impressionist.