Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir · 1879

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

131.2 × 99.2 cm (51 1/2 × 39 1/16 in.); Framed: 160.1 × 129 × 10.2 cm (63 × 50 3/4 × 4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Renoir's 1879 canvas captures two young acrobats — sisters Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg — in the sawdust glow of the Cirque Fernando, one of Montmartre's most beloved permanent circuses, their performance barely finished as they gather oranges tossed from the crowd. At this point in his career Renoir was deeply absorbed by modern Parisian life, and the circus gave him exactly what he loved: movement, colour, and the unguarded energy of people caught in a moment. His brushwork here is looser than his formal portraits but more deliberate than his sun-dappled outdoor scenes — the girls' costumes shimmer with soft peach and gold, while the background crowd dissolves into suggestion. The composition tilts slightly forward, pulling the viewer into the ring rather than positioning them as a distant spectator. The Cirque Fernando on Boulevard Rochechouart drew several Impressionist painters in the late 1870s; Degas painted its trapeze artists in the same years, making this a rare instance of two masters responding to the same venue almost simultaneously. Our hand-painted oil reproduction faithfully recreates the warmth and spontaneity of Renoir's original — the delicate flesh tones, the loose crowd, the children's unselfconscious charm — on artist-grade canvas using traditional oil pigments.