Renoir - Three Bathers Playing with Crab

Three Bathers Playing with Crab was painted in 1895.

Type of the painting - Oil on canvas.

Though the easy freedom with which he handle them links these bathers to the Iridescent Period, the softened-off modeling is a foretaste of the great post-1900 bathers of Renoir’s old age. They prove, furthermore, that there was no hiatus between the earlier and later bathers. Another version of this work exist, in which the three women, become almost baroque, are even more freely handled than here, and in which the brushstrokes are longer and more distinct. The version reproduced above may be a little later in date, which would account for the slight differences in treatment.

It is a part of the following sets: Renoir and The Nude, The Bathers