In the late 1860s, Renoir's technique was still influenced by Gustave Courbet, but he continued to develop his unique style painting filtered light which he would return to in The Swing (1876) and Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876).

[note 1][3] He soon found work as a decorative commercial artist during the day, painting fans for ladies, church banners for overseas missionaries, and ornamental blinds.

[9] Art critic Jean Bouret writes: "Diaz, still wearing his old porcelain decorator's smock (like Troyon and Dupré), happened to meet Renoir in a clearing of the forest and recommended to him to use lighter tones, the very advice he himself had been given by Rousseau thirty years earlier.

"[10] In his research on collaboration and friendship dynamics among the French Impressionists, sociologist Michael P. Farrell notes that the group learned together from their shared successes and failures.

Sisley was resistant at first, thinking it was "crazy" to paint colored light ("The idea of making trees blue and the ground purple!

Renoir's exploratory use of color confirmed what Monet had previously learned from his mentor, Dutch painter Johan Jongkind (1819–1891), a forerunner of Impressionism.

Meanwhile, Renoir continued to face rejection at the Salon with Paysage avec deux figures (1866) and Diana (1867), two works featuring Lise as a model.

[21] Art historian Douglas Cooper notes, "Like Lise, the Le Coeurs had given moral support and encouragement to Renoir during those bleak years when he was struggling, in the face of poverty and frustration, to overcome the difficulties of allowing his artistic personality and vision to develop.

[22] "Despite his attachment to Le Cœur and Marlotte, and to Monet and Sisley", writes art historian Colin B. Bailey, "landscape painting was a secondary endeavor for him.

Previously, it was assumed that Renoir had composed the painting in the Fontainebleau forest, close to Chailly-en-Brie near Bourron-Marlotte, just like he had done with Mother Anthony's Tavern (1866).

[31] When Renoir's work was exhibited by the Salon early in his career, it was often skied,[15] a process where his paintings were deliberately hung in areas such as high places and corners where it was difficult for the public to view and would receive the least attention.

[36] Art historian Jane M. Roos notes that "relegating works to the dépotoir was a favorite tactic of the administration, a 'humiliation' in Castagnary's words and a sure sign that a painting had displeased the establishment or, perhaps, pleased the public too much.

"[31] Lise with a Parasol is a large format, almost life-size portrait painting of a young woman in full-length, standing on the edge of a forest clearing with the shade of a grove of oak trees composing the background.

Lise carries a black lace parasol to shade her head while her body is in strong sunlight, standing on a patch of grass.

By using Lise's first name as the title, House argues that Renoir was pointing to her status as a mistress (or an unmarried female lover and companion).

[39] Renoir's presentation of Lise with a Parasol in the full-length, life-size format was, writes Peter H. Feist, a style typically reserved for royalty in the Western tradition.

[40] Renoir's early use of the misty effect in his portrait of Lise with a Parasol would later be drawn upon by the artist in future works, writes art critic Charles Louis Borgmeyer.

[43] According to Anne Distel, although Lise was a working class seamstress, her appearance in a "fine dress and umbrella suggests some holiday extravagance" in the context of the painting.

Critics noted that Lise with a Parasol, like several of Renoir's earlier paintings, Mother Anthony's Tavern (1866) and Diana (1867), showed the influence of other artists, notably French Realist painter Gustave Courbet.

[45] Art historians Lionello Venturi and Jean Leymarie both note the influence of Courbet, particularly from his work Young Ladies of the Village (1852).

The model for the central figure in that painting is Courbet's sister Juliette, who appears in profile holding a parasol in a similar pose to Renoir's Lise.

1: The White Girl (1861–62) by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, the image of Olympia (1863) by Édouard Manet, and the painting of Camille (1866) by Claude Monet.

[47] Art critic Zacharie Astruc and writer Émile Zola both viewed Renoir's Lise with a Parasol as a continuation of Monet's Camille.

"[53] Tinterow attributes direct criticism of the painting to Renoir's decision to shadow Tréhot's face in darkness and emphasize the reflection of sunlight from her white dress.

[30] In Le Salon Pour Rire, French caricaturist André Gill likened Tréhot in Lise with a Parasol to "a nice semisoft cheese out for a stroll",[54] while Ferdinand de Lasteyrie described the painting as "the figure of a fat woman daubed with white".

[60] Later that same month, on May 23, Karl Ernst Osthaus, a patron of the European avant-garde, paid 18,000 Goldmarks for Lise with a Parasol and brought it to his Folkwang Museum in Hagen, Germany.