Mademoiselle Dieterle

A leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style, Pierre-Auguste Renoir made a lithographic portrait of actress and singer Amélie Laurent Diéterle around 1899. He returned to that black and white printed image a few years later modifying it with pastel, using different color combinations, to make new variations of her portrait. Dramatic plumed hats, like the one seen here, also appear in photographic portraits of Diéterle from the 1890s. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau.”