Portrait de femme. Um 1885.
Pastel.
Signed in lower right. On laid paper. 48.4 x 41 cm (19 x 16.1 in), the full sheet.

• Charming study in easy manner of an elegant Parisian fin-de-siècle lady
• As of the 1880s Renoir used fashionable hats to add a colorful and airy touch to the face of the depicted ladies
• The doll-like facial features of Renoir's models show the individual character and also express the artist's ideal of female beauty
• Notable provenance with Hans Bethge, poet and friend with many renowned artists around the turn of the century, as previous owner.

Accompanied by a written confirmation from the Wildenstein Institutes, Paris, from October 12, 2001. The work can be presented for an inclusion into the digital catalog raisonné.

PROVENANCE: Collection Dr. Hans Bethge, Berlin.
Private collection Southern Germany.
Ketterer Kunst, Munich, auction on December 5, 2003, lot 35.
Private collection Hesse (acquired in aforementioned auction).

"De même que Watteau avait pour ainsi dire créé la grâce de la femme au dix-huitième siècle, de même Renoir a crée la grâce de la femme au dix-neuvième."
Octave Mirbeau, Notes sur l‘art: Renoir, in: La France, December 8, 1884, p. 2.