After the Bath

Pierre-Auguste Renoir executed this nude in 1888 during his "dry" or "Ingres" period, when he temporarily abandoned the soft brushwork of Impressionism for firmer drawing and sculptural form. A young woman dries herself after bathing, her skin rendered with warm pinks and pearly whites against a loosely painted landscape background.

Renoir's bathers of this period show his admiration for Ingres and Raphael. He'd traveled to Italy in 1881 and returned convinced that Impressionism had reached a dead end. The tighter modeling of flesh and clearer outlines here reflect that crisis of confidence, though his palette stayed characteristically warm and luminous.

The painting belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. By the 1890s, Renoir had relaxed back into a softer, more fluid style that merged his classical interests with Impressionist color.