A Waitress at Duval's Restaurant  1875

Renoir portrays a waitress who worked at one of several Parisian restaurants established by a butcher named Duval. An 1881 Baedeker guidebook described these "Établissements de Bouillon" as offering a limited and affordable menu to patrons "waited on by women, soberly garbed, and not unlike sisters of charity." Renoir imparted to his comely model an unaffected grace. As he...