Blonde Bather

Ambroise Vollard, who collected his art, reported that Renoir particularly admired the works he saw by Titian and Raphael (including Madonna della seggiola and The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple) as well as Pompeiian and Egyptian frescoes.

More practically, in letters home Renoir wrote that he appreciated the beautiful scenery and light, and he hoped to complete many paintings which would attract good prices.

He had become dissatisfied with his figure painting (which lived awkwardly beside his impressionist landscapes) and he was pleased to leave Paris where he felt obliged to do society portraits.

Charigot had earlier in 1881 been included in Renoir's Le déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party) where she is the woman with the little dog, on the left.

[1] Renoir's friends in Paris also regarded it as a distinct change of style – the figure's contours are soft and, apart from the wedding ring, there are no signs of modernity.

Renoir wrote "So, by studying out of doors I have ended up by seeing only the broad harmonies without any longer preoccupying myself with the small details that dim the sunlight rather than illuminating it.

"[7] Back in Paris in spring 1882 Renoir painted a second version, 90 by 63 centimetres (35.4 in × 24.8 in), mainly distinguished from the original by brighter background colours and a line of cliffs apparent in the distance.

[1] After returning from a working holiday in Spain with his young family in 1933, Kenneth Clark,[note 3] later to become the famous British art historian, wrote to his mentor Bernard Berenson: "We are consoled by the purchase of two small Renoirs which would make Mary sick but to me are exquisitely lovely.

[11] Edward Lucie-Smith wrote of Kenneth Clark in 2014: "He also once owned ... a large icing-sugar sweet Renoir nude from the early 1880s, now in the Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin.

[13] There exists a red chalk study 84.5 by 65.5 centimetres (33.3 in × 25.8 in) on wove tissue paper mounted on board, owned by the Dallas Museum of Art.