Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Two Sisters (On the Terrace) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Zuzanna Stańska 5 August 2024 min Read

Lise Tréhot—The Mysterious Beauty from Renoir’s Paintings

European Art

Masterpiece Story: The Theatre Box by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Impressionism

Auguste Renoir – Two Young Girls at the Piano

This beautiful painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir is known under two titles. The first one – Two Sisters (in French: Les Deux Sœurs) was given to the painting by the artist himself, and the second – On the Terrace (Sur la Terrasse) by its first owner Paul Durand-Ruel.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir depicted the radiance of lovely young women on a warm and beautiful day. The older girl wears a female boater’s blue ﬂannel. Renoir worked on the painting on the terrace of the Maison Fournaise, a restaurant located on an island in the Seine in Chatou, a western suburb of Paris. The artist spent much of his time there in the spring of 1881. Over the railings of the terrace, you can see shrubbery and foliage with the river Seine behind it.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Two Sisters On the TerracePierre-Auguste Renoir Two Sisters (On the Terrace)Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881, Art Institute of Chicago — Pierre-Auguste Renoir, *Two Sisters (On the Terrace)*, 1881, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

The painting was already underway by April 19, 1881, when, at lunch in Chatou with the American painter James McNeill Whistler, Renoir spoke of postponing a planned trip to London:

The weather is fine and I have my models; that’s my only excuse.

Pierre-August Renoir, art-Renoir.

In real life, the girls were not actually sisters. Jeanne Darlot (1863–1914), a future actress who was 18 years old at the time, posed as “the elder sister.” Unfortunately, the identity of the model for the “younger sister” is unknown.

The painting was presented to the public for the first time at the 7th Impressionist exhibition in the spring of 1882. In 1883 it was known to be in the collection of Charles Ephrussi (the one portrayed by his great grand-nephew, Edmund de Waal, in his book The Hare with Amber Eyes), an art collector and publisher. However, in 1892 the painting was yet again returned to the collection of the Durand-Ruel family. Now it is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Get your daily dose of art

Click and follow us on Google News to stay updated all the time

We love art history and writing about it. Your support helps us to sustain DailyArt Magazine and keep it running.

DailyArt Magazine needs your support. Every contribution, however big or small, is very valuable for our future. Thanks to it, we will be able to sustain and grow the Magazine. Thank you for your help!

Zuzanna Stańska

Art Historian, founder and CEO of DailyArtMagazine.com and DailyArt mobile app. But to be honest, her greatest accomplishment is being the owner of Pimpek the Cat.