Alfred Sisley

Pierre-Auguste Renoir · 1876

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

66.2 × 54.8 cm (26 × 21 9/16 in.); Framed: 90.2 × 79.4 × 10.8 cm (35 1/2 × 31 1/4 × 4 1/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Renoir's portrait of Alfred Sisley is one of the most tender likenesses to emerge from the Impressionist circle — a quietly intimate study of one artist rendered by another who knew him well. Renoir and Sisley had been close friends since their student days at Charles Gleyre's studio in the early 1860s, and that familiarity shows. Rather than a formal pose, the portrait conveys ease and personality, with Renoir's characteristic loose, feathery brushwork giving the figure a warmth that photographic portraiture of the era rarely achieved. The palette is rich but unforced, the light falling naturally across Sisley's face in the way Renoir had spent years learning to see it. The two men painted side by side on numerous occasions, most notably along the banks of the Seine, and Sisley himself would go on to become one of the most dedicated landscape painters of the Impressionist generation — making this portrait a rare record of him as subject rather than artist. This hand-painted oil reproduction is executed on canvas using traditional techniques and artist-grade pigments, preserving the directness of Renoir's touch and the depth of colour that digital prints simply cannot replicate.