Artwork · 1881 · Genre painting

Two Sisters (On the Terrace)

1881 · Oil on Canvas
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
★ 7.2 editorial score

A young woman in a deep-blue dress and red-trimmed hat sits on a terrace above the shimmering Seine, a little girl beside her and a basket of brightly colored balls of wool in the foreground, lush greenery behind. Renoir floods the scene with warm, saturated color and radiant light. Now in the Art Institute of Chicago, Two Sisters (On the Terrace) is among his most popular works - a picture of pure charm and well-being, the freshness of youth and a sunlit afternoon captured in glowing, jewel-bright hues against a softly dissolving garden.