Lucie Berard (Child in White)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir · 1883

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

61.3 × 49.8 cm (24 3/8 × 19 5/8 in.); Framed: 84.2 × 73.1 × 9.6 cm (33 1/8 × 28 3/4 × 3 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Renoir's portrait of young Lucie Berard is one of the most tender childhood studies in Impressionist painting — a small figure rendered with extraordinary sensitivity against a softly diffused background. Painted at the height of Renoir's mature Impressionist period, the work shows his gift for capturing fleeting moments of childhood without sentimentality. His brushwork here is characteristically loose yet precise where it counts — the child's face holds genuine presence while the white dress dissolves into light around her. Lucie was the daughter of Paul Berard, a French diplomat and one of Renoir's most important patrons, and the artist painted several members of the Berard family across the early 1880s. Renoir visited the Berard family estate at Wargemont repeatedly during this period, producing some of his most intimate and unguarded portraits there — work that feels more like friendship than commission. Now held at the Art Institute of Chicago, the original continues to draw visitors for its quiet emotional directness. This hand-painted oil reproduction is executed on canvas using traditional techniques, preserving the warmth of Renoir's palette and the particular quality of light that makes the original feel less like a formal portrait and more like a moment caught before the child turned away.