Auguste Renoir - Washhouse at lower Meudon 1875

Washhouse at lower Meudon 1875
Washhouse at lower Meudon
1875 50x61cm oil/canvas
The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

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From The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown:
At the center of this painting is a lavoir, or wash-house boat, where France’s working classes could wash laundry. The vessel is positioned on a stretch of the River Seine in Meudon, a town famous as the site of one of Louis XIV’s palaces. Rather than emphasizing the town’s historic significance, Renoir focused on a scene from contemporary life and painted the water, trees, boats, and figures with uniformly thin brushstrokes, producing a quintessentially modern landscape.
- See more at: http://www.clarkart.edu/Collection/6400#sthash.RFa8Szm0.dpuf