Artwork · 19th century · Auguste Renoir

Auguste Renoir, Madame Georges Charpentier (Marguerite-Louise Lemonnier, 1848–1904) and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe (1872–1945) and Paul-Emile-Charles (1875–1895), 1878

LeoTurn on Magnifier at the lower right and move slowly across the painting.
Full screen opens it edge to edge.Tap the painting to fill the screen.
Spread two fingers to look closer.

Madame Georges Charpentier (Marguerite-Louise Lemonnier, 1848–1904) and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe (1872–1945) and Paul-Emile-Charles (1875–1895)

Auguste Renoir1878Oil on canvas153.7 × 190.2 cm

Make a frame or mug with this painting →

At a glance

Text size

Madame Charpentier, in a black gown, sits on a sofa in her Paris drawing room with her two children in blue and a big black-and-white dog.
Auguste Renoir painted it in 1878.
The canvas is about 190 centimeters wide. At the Salon of 1879 it was hung in a good spot, and that gave Renoir's career a real lift.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on the child on the sofa. Golden curls, a blue dress, white socks. The outfit matches the sister's, so you might take this for a girl, but it is the son, Paul, about three years old. In well-off Paris families of the time, little boys often wore long hair and dresses too.
Look at the dog at the bottom. A large dog with black and white fur lies on the floor with its chin on its paws. Its collar is dotted with yellow. Georgette, the daughter, about six, sits on its back like a bench, and the dog does not budge.
Zoom in on the mother's face and the front of her dress. A small pearl earring and a gold flower-shaped brooch shine against the black. The white lace is rubbed in with quick strokes of white paint. Look closely and you will see blue and violet strokes mixed into the black gown.
Look at the wall at the upper left. Two peacocks are painted on a golden folding screen in the Japanese style. Renoir sketched them in with only a few loose strokes, so they stay in the background and never compete with the people.
Zoom in on the little table at the upper right. A blue-patterned porcelain vase overflows with flowers, and a dish holds pale green grapes. Beside it, a glass carafe and glasses flash white where the light hits them. You could cut out this corner alone and have a still life.

When it was painted

In 1878 Renoir was thirty-seven and still struggling. He had shown with the Impressionists in 1874, 1876, and 1877, yet buyers were few and prices were low. Then a publisher's house in Paris opened its doors to him.

Georges Charpentier published Zola, Flaubert, Daudet, and the Goncourt brothers. His wife, Marguerite, gathered those writers, along with artists and politicians, in her home. The room in this picture is the Japanese-style room of that house. The couple asked Renoir for a large portrait of Marguerite with their two children.

In 1879 Renoir made a choice. Instead of joining the fourth Impressionist exhibition, he sent this canvas to the official Salon. The jury accepted it, and Madame Charpentier used her influence to make sure it was hung in a prominent spot. Critics liked it. Afterward, wealthy Paris families began asking Renoir for portraits of their own.

Life went on differently for each person in the painting. Little Paul, on the sofa, died in 1895, at about twenty. Marguerite died in 1904, and Georges the following year. In April 1907, at the sale of the Charpentier estate in Paris, the dealer Durand-Ruel bought the picture on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum.

Look again at Paul's round face on the sofa. Nearly a century and a half later, he is still three years old, sitting beside his sister.

The painter

Auguste Renoir

1841–1919

When painting this, the artist was about 37 years old

All paintings by Auguste Renoir →

More by the same painter

Two Sisters (On the Terrace)1881

By the Seashore1883

Young Girl Bathing1892

Questions to think about

Look for itCan you find Renoir's signature near the floor at the lower right?
Why?Why do you think Renoir placed the mother off to the right instead of in the very center?
What about you?A hundred and fifty years ago, little boys wore dresses. Where do our ideas about boys' clothes and girls' clothes come from, and do we really have to keep them?

Same period