Nude with Figure in Background

Auguste Renoir

National Gallery of Art

A nude woman with pale pink and white-colored skin is loosely painted in a landscape in this vertical composition. She seems to move off to our left, her back to us as she pulls a white cloth across her body, but she turns to look over her left shoulder. Her hair is touched with lime green, her eyes and mouth are pink dots, and her body and the drapery are shaded with pale violet. A second person wearing a dark suit, a tall, dark hat, and a vivid yellow cravat walks, slumping slightly, to our right in the background. Trees and bushes in the landscape are painted with swirls of laurel green and cobalt blue with swipes of white for the trunks. Bands of canary yellow, rose pink, and lapis blue are near the right edge of the painting just behind the woman’s upper legs. The edges of the canvas are unpainted or thinly painted. The artist signed the work in the lower right corner, “Renoir.”