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Auguste Renoir - The letter 1900

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From Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute:
A woman wearing an elaborately decorated hat inclines her head to look at a letter written by her companion. The painting looks like a slice of everyday life in a middle-class home in late-nineteenth-century France, but in fact, the intimate scene is a fiction, staged by the artist using models. The subject gave Renoir an opportunity to experiment with contrasting colors, particularly white and black, as well as red and green. The straw hat was a studio prop, long out of fashion by the 1890s.
- See more at: http://www.clarkart.edu/Art-Pieces/10543#sthash.LEFyrbMg.dpuf