This 1879 portrait is of Thérèse Berard, the young niece of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s patron Paul Berard, a diplomat, and banker.
Renoir often spent the summer at Berard’s house in Normandy and painted pictures to decorate the house. The background of the work is obscured to focus our attention on the girl’s expression which seems to be one of a reverie.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Thérèse Berard is in the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States.