P ainted with extraordinary vigor and luminosity, Gabrielle exemplifies Renoir's talent for capturing the subtle charms of feminine beauty. It captures the gentleness and blushing complexion of Gabrielle Renard, the governess who cared for Renoir's young children and would become his most recognizable model at the turn of the century. Gabrielle revived in the artist his early Impressionist spirit, while inspiring in him a new tendency towards Classicism.

The present work demonstrates a particularly high level of finish, and the chosen palette of warm and deep tones differs from Renoir's earlier pale pastel hues. The series that the artist painted of Gabrielle, either with his children or alone, "reveals the extraordinary deliberations with which Renoir approached a body of work that appears, at first sight, among his most natural and spontaneous" (Colin Bailey, Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age, New Haven, 1997, p. 224).

Gabrielle in red

As a "highly-spirited, independent, but fiercely loyal member of the household," Gabrielle became the most important and favored model of Renoir's later years, posing both nude and clothed for nearly 200 of the artist's paintings" (ibid., p. 224). Renoir often depicted Gabrielle in profile wearing a red blouse, with a relaxed facial expression, flushed cheeks, dark hair and sensuous red lips. These choices exemplify the artist’s attempt to move away from his self-proclaimed manière aigre (sour manner) that he felt had pervaded his earlier work.

Poster for the IXeme Exposition internationale des Beaux-Arts, 1910, Venice

Eugène Carrière, a French fin-de-siècle Symbolist painter and contemporary of Renoir, acquired the present work only years before his death in 1906. Four years later, Gabrielle was chosen to be displayed in Renoir’s retrospective exhibition at the IXeme Exposition internationale des Beaux-Arts in Venice, Italy (what now is familiarly known as the Venice Biennale). The 1910 Venice International Exhibition was a very important moment for the art world as three European artists were showcased in individual retrospective exhibitions: Klimt, Courbet and Renoir. Next door, in the Spanish Pavillion, Picasso’s Famille de saltimbanques was the cause of controversy and was ultimately removed from the show; he would not be invited back until 1949. In Renoir’s retrospective exhibition, only twenty-seven works were selected to represent the enormity of his oeuvre and the complexity of the Parisian artistic scene; therefore, each work had to be of the highest quality, among them Gabrielle.