Yvonne and Christine Lerolle at the Piano

One sister in white tries to play a piece at the piano, the other leans in to follow the score. Behind them on the wall hang two Degas pictures. Renoir painted the Lerolle girls at home in 1897.

The story behind the painting

Renoir painted this oil in 1897, in the late period of his career. By then his portraits had made him a favourite painter of the French bourgeoisie. The Lerolle family were great supporters of new artists, above all Edgar Degas. The canvas measures 73 by 92 cm. Wikipedia sets it beside Girls at the Piano of 1892, an earlier picture of young women making music, and reads the two together as a return to a fresher, more colourful manner.

What to look for

Yvonne, dressed in white, works at a piece on the piano while her sister Christine follows the score like an accomplice. Renoir still cares about natural light and colour, but he is especially interested in modelling and drawing the figures, whose contours the atmosphere does not dissolve as Monet's would. Look at the wall: he paints two Degas works precisely, Before the Race and A Group of Dancers. The white dress in the foreground dominates, but without the soft glow of Girls at the Piano, so the overall mood is rather cool.

Meaning and intent

Girls at home, playing, reading or making music, was a cheerful theme much loved by bourgeois collectors. The scene echoes Berthe Morisot's domestic pictures, from a century when the home became a refuge from the frenzy of modern life, and also the quiet Dutch interiors of the 17th century, especially Vermeer. After the severe line of the previous decade, the paint here regains the fresh colour harmonies of Renoir's impressionist years.

Legacy

Wikipedia says this was the first work of Renoir's acquired by the French State, bought by Henry Roujon, who, urged by Stéphane Mallarmé, wanted a collection of living artists at the Luxembourg Palace. Wikipedia also places it at the Musée de l'Orangerie, while Wikidata names the Jean Walter-Paul Guillaume Collection, the collection that the Orangerie shows. For Wikipedia the purchase proves that by the end of the 19th century Renoir had become one of the most famous French artists, a painter whose joyful, slightly romantic scenes had won over the public.