RENOIR, Pierre-Auguste
(b, 1841, Limoges, d. 1919, Cagnes-sur-Mer)

Dancing Girl with Castanets

1909
Oil on canvas, 155 x 65 cm
National Gallery, London

This painting, together with its companion piece Dancing Girl with Tambourine, forms a pair Dancing Girls with Musical Instruments. They were painted to decorate a dining room of an apartment in Paris. It was intended that the pictures should hang either side of a mirror. The model for both girls was Georgette Pigeot, but the head of the figure in the Dancing Girl with Castanets was modelled on Renoir's maid, Gabrielle Renard.