Renoir's Two Sisters (On the Terrace): they aren't sisters — who they really are

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.455): a young woman in navy and a red hat beside a child on a terrace over the Seine

Short answer (updated 27 Oct 2026, pass 4): Renoir's Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881, hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago (1933.455). The two figures are not sisters. The young woman is the aspiring actress Jeanne Darlaud, and the child is an unrelated, unidentified model. The dealer Paul Durand-Ruel gave the painting its title for the 1882 Impressionist exhibition. Renoir painted it in spring 1881 on the terrace of the Restaurant Fournaise at Chatou, the same place as Luncheon of the Boating Party. (Art Institute of Chicago)

The fact gap: a title that isn't true

What people repeat What the museum record says
Who they are Two sisters Jeanne Darlaud (Eugénie Marie Darlaud) and an unrelated child. Renoir paid both as models.
Where the title came from Renoir Durand-Ruel used Les deux soeurs at the seventh Impressionist exhibition (Paris, 1–31 March 1882, cat. 138). His own stock book first listed it as Femme sur une terrasse au bord de la Seine (no. 1451). After 1882 it was almost always shown as a terrace picture, not as sisters: Femme sur une terrasse (Chatou) in 1883, On the Terrace in New York in 1886, La terrasse in 1892, Sur la terrasse from 1899. (AIC open-access record)
Season Summer by the river Spring 1881. Renoir wrote from Chatou in April that he was painting "trees in bloom."
Where Somewhere on the Seine The terrace of the Restaurant Fournaise, Chatou

The mix-up has a source. In 1923 Durand-Ruel misremembered the model as Jeanne's younger sister Anne (stage name Jane Demarsy), who also posed for Renoir, in an unknown setting, wearing the same boating costume but with a blue hat instead of a red one. That picture is Daulte 424 / Dauberville 1060; we have not found a public museum page for it, so we don't link an image. The art historian François Daulte later identified the seated model in our painting as Jeanne. So there really were Darlaud sisters, but only one of them is in this painting. (AIC scholarly catalogue, cat. 11)

Renoir's own words

On Easter Monday, 18 April 1881, Renoir wrote from Chatou to the critic Théodore Duret. He said he would rather not leave for a planned trip to England: "I am struggling with trees in bloom, with women and children, and wish to see nothing beyond that. . . . The weather is fine and I have my models; that's my only excuse." (AIC scholarly catalogue, cat. 11, translating the letter as first published by Michel Florisoone in L'amour de l'art, February 1938, p. 40)

The original French reads: "Je suis en lutte avec des arbres en fleurs, avec femmes et enfants, et je ne veux rien voir au delà." A second museum quotes the same letter. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston uses it for Renoir's The Seine at Chatou (1881, 19.771), a springtime riverbank with a flowering tree painted at the same place and in the same season. (MFA Boston)

Renoir, The Seine at Chatou, 1881: a flowering tree on a grassy riverbank, sailboats on the Seine and a woman carrying flowers at right
The "trees in bloom" of the letter: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Seine at Chatou, 1881, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 19.771. Public domain (PD-Art; Renoir died 1919). Image via Wikimedia Commons, photographed from a printed book, so the colours are approximate. Not supplied or endorsed by the museum; not the painting we print.

Three details worth looking at

  1. The two surfaces. The faces are painted with tight, controlled strokes that look almost like porcelain. The river, boats and blossoming trees behind the railing stay loose and hazy. (AIC)
  2. The costume. The young woman wears the blue flannel of a female rower's outfit, a canotière, with a red hat. Renoir cast an actress in that role. (AIC)
  3. The echo. The child's flowered hat repeats the bright skeins of yarn in the basket she's touching. (AIC)

What the Art Institute's lab found

The technical report in the Art Institute's 2014 catalogue shows how much Renoir changed while he worked. (AIC 2014, cat. 11, Internet Archive copy)

  • A stock canvas. It is a commercially prepared, standard no. 40 portrait canvas (about 100 × 81 cm) with a smooth white ground. There are no known preparatory sketches, and no underdrawing is apparent; Renoir outlined some forms in red lake, for example around the young woman's right eye.
  • The woman moved. X-ray and transmitted-light images show that her head and hat were changed and her right arm was brought closer to her body. Renoir painted out his first placement of her features; a faint outline of an earlier eye is still visible above and to the right of her left eye.
  • The child's face was wiped. He wiped flesh paint off the child's forehead and cheeks and repainted them in much thinner layers.
  • Two walkers became one rower. Infrared shows two figures on the riverside path to the left of Jeanne's head. Renoir painted them out in favour of a single rower in a skiff.
  • A railing decoration removed. He first painted a second set of curving decorations between the balcony rails. Covering them let the blossoming trees behind fill out.
  • Thinner trees. Large areas of the background were scraped and repainted, swapping fuller foliage for the finer leaves and vines you see now. The scraping shows only in the X-ray, not on the surface.

The catalogue also explains two choices. The red hat with the blue flannel matched what the boating women of the Seine actually wore: Maupassant's novel Yvette (1884) describes "a dress of blue flannel or red flannel". And the basket of wool may be a joke. Colin Bailey notes that critics often compared Renoir's painting to wool, and suggests he "incorporates this critical trope in order to deflate it". (AIC 2014, cat. 11)

Context

  • It's among the last paintings Renoir set at the Fournaise, a run that began in 1875. The AIC catalogue calls it the spring counterpart to the summer feast of Luncheon of the Boating Party, which the Phillips Collection dates 1880–81 and acquired in 1923. (AIC; Phillips Collection)
  • Renoir sold it to Durand-Ruel for 1,500 francs. The AIC catalogue notes that this is reportedly what Renoir had been paid three years earlier for the much larger Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children (Met), and suggests the dealer may have commissioned it. Durand-Ruel kept it for himself for over four decades and showed it at least seventeen times. In 1892 the critic Georges Lecomte called the young woman "a modern Mona Lisa." (AIC cat. 11)
  • The sale to Durand-Ruel was on 7 July 1881. The dealer moved it to his New York branch in 1922; Annie Swan Coburn of Chicago bought it there on 4 February 1925 for $100,000 and left it to the Art Institute, which received it in 1933. (AIC provenance)
  • It was reproduced the year it was painted, in Ernest Hoschedé's L'art de la mode (1881), and crossed the Atlantic early: Durand-Ruel showed it in New York in April 1886 at the American Art Galleries' Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris (cat. 181). (AIC open-access record)
  • Since arriving in Chicago it has travelled to Ottawa and Fort Worth (1997–98), the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg for a single-painting show (2001), and Paris, London and Philadelphia for Inventing Impressionism (2014–15). (AIC exhibition history)
  • Jeanne Darlaud entered the Paris Conservatoire in August 1882, worked on the French stage until she retired in 1899, and died in 1914. Colin Bailey found that she and Anne were the daughters of a bookbinder and a brocade weaver. (AIC cat. 11)
  • Catalogues raisonnés: Daulte 1971, cat. 378; Dauberville 2007, vol. 1, cat. 254. (AIC publication history)
  • Inscribed lower right "Renoir '81". Oil on canvas, 100.4 × 80.9 cm (39½ × 31⅞ in). The museum lists it on view in Gallery 201. (AIC open-access record, checked 27 Oct 2026)

Which one to hang

Our print reproduces the Art Institute of Chicago canvas, which the museum releases as CC0. It suits you if you want warmth: the scarlet hat and navy jacket hold the room, and the loose spring river keeps it light. The original is about 39½ × 32 in, so even our 24×30 is roughly three-quarters of its height. → Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881 fine art print

Same light, other rooms:

FAQ

Are the girls in Two Sisters really sisters? No. The young woman is Jeanne Darlaud, and the child was an unrelated model. (AIC)

Where is Two Sisters (On the Terrace)? At the Art Institute of Chicago, accession 1933.455.

Where was it painted? On the terrace of the Restaurant Fournaise at Chatou, on the Seine west of Paris, in spring 1881.

Is it the same place as Luncheon of the Boating Party? Yes, the same restaurant terrace. The AIC catalogue places Two Sisters among the last paintings Renoir set at the Fournaise. (AIC cat. 11)

Who titled it Two Sisters? Not Renoir. Durand-Ruel used Les deux soeurs for the 1882 Impressionist exhibition; his stock book first called it Femme sur une terrasse au bord de la Seine. (AIC cat. 11)

Why do some sources name Anne Darlaud? In 1923 Durand-Ruel misremembered the model as Jeanne's younger sister Anne (Jane Demarsy). François Daulte later identified Jeanne. (AIC cat. 11)

How old was Jeanne Darlaud? The AIC catalogue calls her eighteen in 1881. Other sources give different birth years, so treat that as the museum's figure.

How big is the original? 100.4 × 80.9 cm (39½ × 31⅞ in), oil on canvas, inscribed lower right "Renoir '81". (AIC)

Can I see it in Chicago? The Art Institute lists it on view in Gallery 201 (checked 27 Oct 2026). It travels, so check the museum page before you go. (AIC)

When did it first come to America? In 1886, when Durand-Ruel showed it in New York as On the Terrace, nearly forty years before a Chicago collector bought it. (AIC exhibition history)

Why wasn't Renoir himself in the 1882 Impressionist show? He refused to take part because he thought Gauguin and Pissarro too political. Durand-Ruel lent twenty-five Renoirs from his own stock instead, this one among them. (AIC 2014, cat. 11)

Sources

Quotations are short and attributed. Everything else is paraphrased. The Renoir letter is quoted from the AIC catalogue's English translation. Museum facts were last checked 27 Oct 2026.