La Loge

1874

Oil on canvas, 80 × 63.5 cm. The Courtauld Gallery, London

A fashionable couple in a theater box, painted as a play of black, white and pink. Shown in 1874, its modern subject drew both praise and suspicion.

Renoir paints up-to-date evening dress and a night at the theater, not history or myth. Scenes of modern Paris pleasures were a core Impressionist subject.
Renoir's brother Edmond and a model named Nini Lopez posed for it in the studio.
He raises his opera glasses toward the audience; she lowers hers and is herself on view.
Look at the broad black and white stripes of her dress against the soft strokes of her face.
Samuel Courtauld bought it in 1925 and bequeathed it in 1948.

A theater box was for being seen as much as for watching. Fashion and satirical papers both pictured box scenes, so viewers knew the setting.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain