Detail of Reclining Nude by Renoir in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2010

Artist: Auguste Renoir (French, Limoges 1841–1919 Cagnes-sur-Mer)

Title: Reclining Nude

Date: 1883

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 25 5/8 x 32 in. (65.1 x 81.3 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002

Accession Number: 2003.20.12

Gallery Label:

Nudes and the grand tradition of classical art preoccupied Renoir in the 1880s. In this painting, he paid homage to Ingres's "Grande Odalisque" (Musée du Louvre, Paris), although he transformed Ingres's cool courtesan into a healthy, pink-cheeked girl, and the harem into an Impressionist landscape reminiscent of the Channel coast.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/europe...