Young Woman Sewing
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
61.4 × 50.5 cm (24 3/16 × 19 7/8 in.); Framed: 84.2 × 75 × 10.5 cm (33 1/8 × 29 1/2 × 4 1/8 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
14647
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The model for this elegant painting of a French bourgeois woman sewing may be Aline Charigot, whom Pierre-Auguste Renoir would go on to marry. The artist treated his domestic subject—a middle-class woman embroidering a textile—with vibrant color, light-filled atmosphere, and freely handled paint. Cobalt blue dominates the composition with striking contrasts of red and spare touches of yellow, relying on the optical effect produced by the close proximity of primary colors to enliven the compositi...
About the Artist
Pierre-Auguste Renoir · 1841–1919
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was a founding figure of Impressionism whose luminous depictions of Parisian leisure, sensuous female forms, and sun-dappled landscapes made him one of the most beloved painters in Western art history. Born in Limoges to a working-class family, Renoir began as a porcelain painter before pursuing fine arts, and this early craft experience gave him facility with the...