Madame Monet Lying on a Sofa (Madame Monet lisant), 1874 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Madame Monet Lying on a Sofa (Madame Monet lisant), painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1874, shows Camille Monet, wife of Claude Monet, reclining on a white sofa in a blue dressing gown, a folded newspaper held loosely in her hand as she gazes toward the viewer. The brushwork is soft and rapid, built on cool blues and creamy whites that dissolve the sofa’s upholstery into passages of pure light, an intimate record of the two painters’ close friendship. Renoir made the picture during a stay at the Monet household in Argenteuil, where he and Monet often set up their easels side by side, and it now belongs to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919). Date: 1874.

Madame Monet Lying on a Sofa (Madame Monet lisant), 1874 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Intimate Impressionist Portrait Wall Art Canvas Print.