
“La Loge”, 1874 and “Portrait de Nini Lopez”, 1876
The fashionable woman in “La Loge” is Nini Lopez, who was an actress from Montmartre and known as “fish face.” Renoir met her when he moved to Montmartre for the summer to paint “Bal du moulin de la Galette” and painted her frequently between 1876 and 1879.
Renoir, who is perhaps the most beloved of the Impressionists, was a figure painter, not a landscapist, at heart; most of his most important paintings feature women. While Monet was painting the interplay of light on haystacks, poplars and cathedrals, and Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro were dappling color on Norman landscapes and Parisian vistas, Renoir was painting the beautiful women he loved, both as models and in real life as well.

Lise Trehot and “Odalisque (An Algerian Woman)”, 1870
The enchanting girl dancing in “Bal du moulin de la Galette “(1876) is Marguerite Legrand. Marguerite, who was known as Margot, was one of Renoir’s favorite models from 1875 until 1879, when she died tragically of typhoid fever, leaving him distraught and temporarily unable to paint.

Jeanne Samary in a Low Necked Dress (detail), 1877
Jeanne Samary once said “Renoir … marries all the women he paints … but with his brush.”
