Three Little Girls

Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña · c. 1870

Medium

Oil on panel

Original size

39.4 × 26.7 cm (15 1/2 × 10 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Romanticism

Three Little Girls captures the gentle warmth and dappled intimacy that made Narcisse Diaz de la Peña one of the most beloved figure painters in nineteenth-century France. Born in Bordeaux to Spanish parents and largely self-taught, Diaz made his name through the Barbizon School, spending decades painting the forest of Fontainebleau before turning increasingly to small-scale figure works like this one. His technique here is characteristically rich — short, jewel-like strokes of colour that build a surface full of life, with the soft light falling across the children in a way that feels observed rather than composed. Painted on panel rather than canvas, the work has an intimacy and tonal depth that oil on wood uniquely allows. Diaz was famously resilient: he lost a leg to blood poisoning as a child and taught himself to paint largely in isolation, yet went on to exhibit at the Salon for decades and to mentor a young Renoir, who later credited him as a formative influence. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is made by skilled artists working directly from high-resolution archival reference, matching the warm amber palette, the soft tonal transitions, and the fluid brushwork that give the original its quiet, enduring charm.