Portrait of Alphonsine Fournaise – Renoir Wall Art | Impressionist Canvas

Portrait of Alphonsine Fournaise by Pierre-Auguste Renoir shows the young woman seated against a soft outdoor background, her cheeks and lips touched with warm rose, her dress and hat modeled in feathered strokes of cream, blue, and gold. The brushwork is light and broken, building form from broken color and ambient light rather than firm contour. Renoir painted Alphonsine Fournaise, the daughter of the proprietors of the riverside restaurant La Maison Fournaise at Chatou, on several occasions; she was part of the lively circle of friends and sitters who populated his open-air subjects of the period. The picture distills a quiet, sun-warmed moment into a luminous Impressionist portrait.