Studies of Pierre Renoir; His Mother, Aline Charigot; Nudes; and Landscape

Pierre-Auguste Renoir · 1885–86

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

45.8 × 39 cm (18 × 15 3/8 in.); Framed: 68.6 × 61 × 10.2 cm (27 × 24 × 4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

This intimate study canvas offers a rare glimpse into Renoir's private world, gathering sketches of his infant son Pierre, his partner Aline Charigot, nude figures, and a patch of landscape onto a single surface as though it were a painter's journal. By the mid-1880s Renoir was deliberately pulling back from pure Impressionism, seeking a more structured draftsmanship he associated with the Old Masters — Raphael and Ingres in particular. This sheet reflects that tension: the brushwork is looser and more exploratory than his finished canvases of the period, yet the figures carry a solidity and tenderness that marks his evolving style. It is the work of a painter thinking on canvas rather than performing for an audience. Pierre was born in March 1885, making this one of the earliest records of Renoir painting his son — a subject he would return to repeatedly across his career. Aline, who would become his wife in 1890, appears here as both muse and family anchor, already central to the domestic world he was building. The hand-painted oil reproduction preserves the warm, earthy palette and the sketch-like spontaneity of the original, held today at the Art Institute of Chicago — bringing the quiet intimacy of Renoir's studio into your home.