Renoir, Gabrielle in the Garden

Unusually for his late period, Renoir painted this one outdoors. Gabrielle's jacket, rendered in the reds typical of his final years, makes her stand out all the more, while the dappled shade beneath the trees, captured with his characteristic Impressionist eye, confirms the outdoor setting.

Gabrielle held a special place in Renoir's life. A cousin of his wife, she lived with the family for about fifteen years from the birth of his second son, Jean, working as the children's nanny. Arriving at age sixteen and staying until she was thirty-one, she did far more than raise the children — she also served as a studio assistant and frequent model. When rheumatism made it impossible for Renoir to even hold a brush, it was Gabrielle who tied one to his hand with string. She appears as a model in more than 200 of his works. Having effectively raised Jean, Gabrielle remained so close to him that when she later moved to the United States, Jean followed her there.

Jean Renoir went on to become a celebrated film director, and he credited the cinema Gabrielle used to take him to as a child with setting him on that path — a testament to how much she was, in every sense but blood, his mother.