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  • A gestural painting of a woman, shown from behind, wearing blue with her red hair loosely tied back. Her hair hides her eyes from view. She reads an illustrated newspaper in an upholstered red chair.
  • A gestural painting of a woman, shown from behind, wearing blue with her red hair loosely tied back. Her hair hides her eyes from view. She reads an illustrated newspaper in an upholstered red chair.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Young Woman Reading an Illustrated Journal
Now On View

Maker

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)

Title

Young Woman Reading an Illustrated Journal

Year

ca. 1880

Medium

  • Oil on canvas

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Oil on canvas

Materials

oil paint

Supports

  • canvas

Dimensions

46.4 x 55.9 cm (18 1/4 x 22 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signature: Signed UR:Renoir

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Museum Appropriation Fund

Object Number

22.125

Type

  • Paintings

Provenance

Purchased from Renoir in December 1885 by Paul Durand-Ruel, Paris.
Consigned by him to the American Art Association, New York, 1886 and Included in catalogue Works In Oil And Pastel By The Impressionists, 1886
by American Art Association, no. 259, Renoir, Woman Reading.
[?Erwin Davis, New York? not in his 1889 sale catalogue];
Estate of the late Alexander Morten, sold 1/29/1919, Lot #51, American Art Association, New York;
1919, Purchased by Durand-Ruel at sale above;
1922, Purchased by Museum of Art. Rhode Island School of Design from Durand-Ruel through Brooks Reed Gallery, Boston.

Publications

  • Books

European Paintings and Sculpture, ca. 1770 - 1937

  • Books

Exchange Exhibition, Exhibition Exchange: From the Collection of Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; From the Collection of The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.

  • Books

Selected Works

Exhibition History

Process Work
Intersections of Photography and Print ca. 1825 to Today
Feb 01, 2025 – Jul 20, 2025

Label copy

How do class, race, and gender affect our engagement with printed media? For the upper-class white woman in Renoir’s painting, reading a fashion magazine is a private pleasure—not a matter of public or political engagement. The print Mexican News, on the other hand, depicts media consumption in a social setting, where people from different classes and racial backgrounds have gathered. In this case, the news concerns Mexico’s loss of territory to the United States at the end of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). Though their reading experience is shared, the group’s lack of social cohesion is apparent. The artist hints at this marginalization by placing the African American figures at lower right and the woman peeking from a window at upper right, barely in the frame. 

Inventing Impressionism
Oct 21, 2016 – Jun 11, 2017

Label copy

Nineteenth-century Parisians were avid consumers of illustrated journals. Renoir’s intimate painting of Aline Charigot, a young dressmaker who later became his wife, shares its focus with a newspaper spread of fashionable figures. Closely cropping the view, Renoir partially conceals his model’s face but captures her profile. He highlights the tone of her skin by opposing its warmth with the cool blue and white of the journal’s pages. Matching his brushstrokes to the textures of her costume and brilliant red hair, he then beckons viewers to the curve of her armchair and invites them to read over her shoulder.

Dress, Art, and Society
1750-1890
Sep 13, 1996 – Jan 05, 1997
European Painting and Sculpture, circa 1770-1937
Oct 18, 1991 – Jan 26, 1992
Exchange Exhibition of Paintings from Rose Museum, Brandeis University
Feb 16, 1967 – Apr 02, 1967

Image use

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Public Domain This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Young Woman Reading an Illustrated Journal, ca. 1880
Oil on canvas
46.4 x 55.9 cm (18 1/4 x 22 inches)
Museum Appropriation Fund 22.125

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

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