In the Summer

A young woman sits by a sunlit wall, her strap slipping from one shoulder, her thoughts somewhere else. Renoir painted her finely, and let the summer behind her dissolve into quick strokes of colour.

The story behind the painting

In Summer is an 1868 portrait by Pierre-Auguste Renoir of Lise Tréhot, then aged about 20. She was Renoir's companion from about 1866 to 1871, and he painted her at least 23 times. A year earlier he had shown her in Lise with a Parasol, his first significant critical success, admired at the Paris Salon of 1868. That success may have encouraged him to paint her again, this time more informally. When he exhibited the new work at the Salon of 1869, he called it En été, étude, adding the word study to deflect criticism of its loosely painted background.

What to look for

The canvas measures 85 by 59 centimetres, a half-length frontal view of Lise seated on a chair beside a wall, perhaps on a balcony, with greenery behind. Compare the two zones. Her figure is carefully finished, while the foliage is sketched with bold dashes of colour that suggest sunlight. A thin red hairband pulls back her dark, wavy hair, which falls over her white bodice. The right strap has slipped from her shoulder. Her bare arms rest on a red and white striped skirt, and in her right hand she holds a few green leaves. Look for the signature, A. Renoir, on the chair at lower left.

Meaning and intent

Renoir draws on the stereotype of the bohemian woman, recalling Esmeralda from Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris; the French title can include la Bohémienne. The painting also looks back to Eugène Delacroix, especially his Orphan Girl at the Cemetery of 1823, whose subject's bodice also slips from one shoulder, and to the Realism of Gustave Courbet. Yet the distant gaze, turned to the right of the viewer, gives Lise an inner life of her own. The painting stands at a crossing point, between formal studio work and the looser Impressionist manner Renoir was moving toward.

Legacy

The picture's journey began quietly. It is not known who first bought it from Renoir, but in March 1873 the critic Théodore Duret acquired it from an unnamed dealer, and later it belonged to the collector François Depeaux. After an auction in 1906, it was acquired in 1907 by the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, using funds donated by Mathilde Kappel. Today it shows visitors a painter in transition, holding on to careful finish in a face while letting light and leaves run free behind it, a small preview of the Impressionism to come.

Lo sapevi?

Painted in 1868; sitter Lise Tréhot, aged about 20 (Wikipedia).
Shown at the 1869 Salon as En été, étude to deflect criticism of the loose background (Wikipedia).
Signed A. Renoir on the chair at lower left (Wikipedia).
Acquired in 1907 by the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin (Wikipedia, Wikidata).

Wikipedia · Wikidata