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The French Impressionist Pierre-Augustin Renoir created an immense sun-dappled world of beautiful women, attentive men, joyful babies, verdant foliage, and perfectly formed fruits and flowers. This enticing volume recaptures his world and views is from present-day social and aesthetic perspectives. It is illustrated with 140 full-page colorplates spanning Renoir's entire career. The colorplates are copiously supplemented by black-and-white documentary photographs and comparative illustrations. John House and Anne Distel have unearthed information from letters, municipal registers, dealers' ledgers. Their commentaries on the pictures discuss technique and style, and identify the people represented, the circumstances, and the successive owners. Contemporary opinions cited in the commentaries contribute to a many-sided portrait of this master, in whom current observers are discovering an unsuspected complexity of painterly sophistication. -- From publisher's description.