Mlle Charlotte Berthier by Renoir, Auguste

Renoir, Auguste · 1883

Auguste Renoir's "Mlle Charlotte Berthier" (1883) hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, a portrait that does more than capture a likeness, it records a woman's position in Parisian society through a series of carefully chosen objects.

The floral motifs echo everywhere: her hat, her dress, the bouquet. But the two objects that do the real social work are the blue-and-white porcelain vase at her elbow and the small black dog nearly swallowed by the dark folds of her dress. The vase signals Japonisme, the craze for Japanese art and design that defined sophisticated taste in the 1880s. A woman who owns such a vase is a woman who is current.

The dog, easy to miss on a phone screen, is a purebred lap dog, a living accessory that announced its owner had the money and time for a creature kept purely for companionship. No working animal, no farm dog. Just a soft, fluffy sign of leisure.

And yet Renoir gives her face the last word: downcast eyes, a mind somewhere else entirely. The objects say "see my status." The gaze says "I am not performing for you."

Details

Her elaborate hat and dress repeat the same floral pattern.

Notice the blue and white vase beside her.

Now look at her lap. Nearly invisible in the dark folds: a dog.

Together they tell us she is fashionable, cultivated, and leisured.

But her eyes never meet ours. She is lost in private thought.

Transcript

Paris, 1883. A young woman in a garden of pink roses. Her elaborate hat and dress repeat the same floral pattern. Notice the blue and white vase beside her. Japanese porcelain was a mark of cultivated taste in 1880s Paris. Now look at her lap. Nearly invisible in the dark folds: a dog. A purebred lap dog was a status symbol, a sign of leisure. Together they tell us she is fashionable, cultivated, and leisured. But her eyes never meet ours. She is lost in private thought.