Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted this early self-portrait in his Montmartre studio around 1876, in the midst of the first Impressionist exhibitions. Aged about thirty-five, the painter sets a straw hat at a rakish angle and meets the viewer's eye with a confident, artisanal gaze, his red beard and the shadow of the brim built up in rapid, wet-in-wet strokes. Thought to have been given by the artist to his patron Victor Chocquet, it is an eloquent early affirmation of Renoir's own presence as he approached the breakthrough years of Impressionism.

Exhibition Venue

Artizon Museum

Tokyo, Japan