
Public Domain
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Public Domain
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Public Domain
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.



Pierre-Auguste Renoir
French, 1841-1919
Petit nu bleu (Little Blue Nude), ca. 1878-1879
oil on canvas
support: 18 1/4 x 15 inches (46.355 x 38.1 cm); framed: 25 3/4 x 22 3/16 x 4 1/8 inches (65.4 x 56.36 x 10.48 cm)
Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
General Purchase Funds, 1941
1941:2
More Details
Inscriptions
Provenance
collection Madame Weiss;sold to Durand-Ruel and Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, "en compte a demi", November 10, 1921;
to Jean Henri Laroche, Paris, possibly in 1919, but by 1922;
to his son Jacques Laroche, Paris;
sold to Paul Rosenberg, Paris and New York, December 1938;
sold to the Albright Art Gallery, February 10, 1941
Class
Work Type
Information may change due to ongoing research.Glossary of Terms
During the late 1870s Pierre-Auguste Renoir began applying Impressionist theory to the rendering of the human figure—a process that would lay the foundations for the rest of his artistic career. Ultimately, Renoir developed an ideal body type: placid, soft-textured women who possess physical qualities reminiscent of the voluptuous nymphs often depicted in eighteenth-century French Rococo painting. The artist became increasingly preoccupied with the ways in which light danced over these supple, receptive surfaces, and his preferred subject after 1876 was the nude bather. The model that sat for Little Blue Nude is traditionally identified as Marguerite “Margot” Legrand (French, unknown–1879), a young woman whose skin Renoir said “took the light.” He painted her several times during this period. Here, she appears in a sleepy, dream-like state, posed in a natural, but abstracted landscape. In the artist’s own words, such paintings embody his desire “to paint nudes as if they were some splendid fruit.”
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Other Works by This Artist
French Impressionism
![L'acteur Tragique (Rouvière dans le rôle d'Hamlet) [The Tragic Actor (Rouvière in the role of Hamlet)]](/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_height_sm/public/artwork/P1999_006_364_o2.jpg?itok=5NTxX7FD)
L'acteur Tragique (Rouvière dans le rôle d'Hamlet) [The Tragic Actor (Rouvière in the role of Hamlet)]
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