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A Waitress at Duval's Restaurant by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir · 1875-01-01

View the artwork: A Waitress at Duval's Restaurant →

This is Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 'A Waitress at Duval's Restaurant,' painted around 1875 and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For over a century, its title was a false lead.

By 1885 it entered the art market as 'La Servante', the servant. For decades, catalogues identified her as a waitress at one of Duval's bouillon restaurants, inexpensive Parisian eateries whose staff wore sober uniforms likened to nuns' habits. But the Met's scholarship now shows that Renoir's own title for this work has never been traced. The label was likely invented after the fact.

Look past the costume. Her posture is confident, her gaze direct. Renoir gives her a gold ring and soft light across her face, the same handling he gave his society portraits. She stands in three-quarter view against a muted floral wallpaper that stays deliberately quiet, letting the figure hold the room.

Renoir once said he wanted to capture an everyday eternity, to find Olympian dignity in a servant girl pausing at her work. A hundred and fifty years later, we still don't know who she was. Maybe that's the point.

#arthistory #impressionism #renoir

Details

Renoir's signature unidealized freshness , slightly parted lips and a matter-of-fact gaze give her dignity without sentimentality, the core emotional anchor of the painting.
Renoir's signature unidealized freshness , slightly parted lips and a matter-of-fact gaze give her dignity without sentimentality, the core emotional anchor of the painting.
The neckerchief matches descriptions of Duval restaurant uniforms 'like sisters of charity'; it is also Renoir's brightest light and the compositional fulcrum of the canvas.
The neckerchief matches descriptions of Duval restaurant uniforms 'like sisters of charity'; it is also Renoir's brightest light and the compositional fulcrum of the canvas.
Painted in layered Prussian and cobalt blues with loose, directional strokes , a textbook example of Renoir's mid-1870s colour economy.
Painted in layered Prussian and cobalt blues with loose, directional strokes , a textbook example of Renoir's mid-1870s colour economy.
The apron fills the lower third of the canvas with loose, dragged strokes of lead white , a virtuoso demonstration of how Renoir builds luminosity from impasto.
The apron fills the lower third of the canvas with loose, dragged strokes of lead white , a virtuoso demonstration of how Renoir builds luminosity from impasto.
The gaze is neither coy nor deferential; for a paid servant this mild self-possession is socially charged and was noticed by contemporary critics.
The gaze is neither coy nor deferential; for a paid servant this mild self-possession is socially charged and was noticed by contemporary critics.
Transcript

By 1885, this painting had a name: La Servante. For decades, everyone called her a waitress at Duval's. But Renoir never titled it. Not once. Her name, her job, all of it was added later. Look at how he painted her. Upright. Self-possessed. A gold ring on her hand. A person, not a type. Renoir said he wanted to find an everyday eternity. Olympian dignity in a servant girl pausing at her work.