Portrait of Mme Paulin by Pierre-Auguste Renoir Case-Mate iPhone Case

Portrait of Mme. Paulin by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, oil on canvas 1885-1890, is a three-quarter length portrait painting of a woman of French society in a black dress, black gloves and jewellery against a heavily hatched, abstracted red interior background. The subject, the wife of a friend of the artist, is painted in cool tones of porcelain-like, pale white skin and cold black costume accented with flecks of white and gold in her bracelets, earrings, jewellery and dress pattern. The warm colours of the hatched red, orange and gold background contrast with the soft expression of the cool, female figure. Renoir starkly placed the figure against the patterned background and captured her soft features, tied-back dark hair and facial expression in an informal manner, contrasting the approach of the Impressionist and modern painters to the posed, formal portraiture of previous generations of artists.