Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)
Vincent van Gogh
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The Story
Two Sisters (On the Terrace) is an 1881 oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. 5 cm × 81 cm. The title Two Sisters (French: Les Deux Sœurs) was given to the painting by Renoir, and the title On the Terrace (French: Sur la terrasse) by its first owner Paul Durand-Ruel. Renoir worked on the painting on the terrace of the Maison Fournaise, a restaurant located on an island in the Seine in Chatou, the western suburb of Paris.
The painting depicts a young woman and her younger sister seated outdoors with a small basket containing balls of wool. Over the railings of the terrace one can see shrubbery and foliage with the River Seine behind it. In 1880 to 1881, shortly before working on Two Sisters, Renoir worked in this particular location on another well-known painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party. " It is unknown who posed as the "younger sister," but it is stated that the models were not actually related.
Working in Oil on canvas at 100.4 × 80.9 cm (39 1/2 × 31 7/8 in.); Framed: 119.1 × 100.1 × 7.7 cm (46 7/8 × 39 3/8 × 3 in.), Pierre-Auguste Renoir constructs depth through value contrast rather than outline, letting figures emerge from darkness the way they would under candlelight or through a shuttered window.
Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Likeness was only part of the job; the painting also had to argue for the sitter's place in the world.
Housed at Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, the painting has passed through the hands of collectors, dealers, and institutions before reaching public view — a provenance that is itself part of the object's story.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
