Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s The Large Bathers is a little bit Raphael, a little bit Impressionist. 

At least that was Renoir’s aim: to create something artists before him had mastered, and to marry that with elements of Impressionism. It all began with a trip to Italy in 1881 and continued with trips to Spain and Algeria. Renoir experienced the works of Titian, Raphael, and Ingres, and returned home feeling rather shooketh. Afterwards, he entered a new period of art called Classical Impressionism, marking his transition from Impressionism to more classical, weighty depictions of the body. 

It took Renoir four years to complete The Large Bathers, and when he submitted it to the Salon in 1887, it was one of twenty-five paintings of female bathers exhibited that year. It seems the artists at the Salon were getting tired of painting Biblical figures and instead wanted to paint nudity in outdoor settings. In the nineteenth century, Gustave Courbet, Georges Seurat, and Paul Cezanne also produced bathing figures. Renoir wasn’t looking to follow the crowd, but hoped The Large Bathers would win him more commissions. 

The Large Bathers wasn’t the only nude Renoir painted. From the 1960s onward, he painted and drew hundreds of nudes. Preparation for this larger painting was extensive. Renoir created multiple drawings, and reworked the female figures many times. The figures in the painting changed position so many times that in 1928 the paint began cracking. Sometime in the late 1930s, the painting was transferred over to a new canvas, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired it in 1963. In 2016, the painting undertook more treatment, as the cracks were returning and the painting was discolored thanks to the varnish.

The blonde model in the center of The Large Bathers is Aline Charigot, a recurring Renoir model and eventually his wife and mother to his children. You may have seen Aline’s face in previous paintings by Renoir, such as Luncheon of the Boating Party and Blonde Bather. Aline’s parents were winegrowers from Essoyes, though she eventually moved to Paris with her mother. Her beauty was renowned and Edgar Degas was so taken by her that he exclaimed to Renoir that his wife “looks like a queen surrounded by circus clowns.”