Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876

Bal du moulin de la Galette [Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette] is doubtless Renoir's most important work of the mid 1870's and was shown at the Impressionist exhibition in 1877.

Author: Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

Title: Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette

Date: 1876

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: H. 131; W. 175 cm

Current location: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Jean-Gilles Berizzi

Henri Chapu | Jeanne d'Arc à Domremy, 1873

19th-century France was fascinated by the figure of Joan of Arc, an historical, mythified heroine who figured in the readily anti-British nationalist movement in the second half of the 19th century.

Henri Chapu (French sculptor, 1833-1891), a classical sculptor who explored a sincere, elegant form of naturalism with great finesse, chose to represent not the warrior maiden in a suit of armour but the shepherdess from Lorraine listening to the voices asking her to help the king to liberate the kingdom.

Henri Chapu | Jeanne d'Arc à Domremy, 1873 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Cecilia Beaux | Sita and Sarita, 1894

This portrait by Cecilia Beaux (American Impressionist painter and portraitist, 1855-1942) portrays the artist's cousin, Sarah Allibone Leavitt, dressed in white with her black cat on her shoulder.

Beaux was recognized not only for her bold painting technique, but also for her ability to imbue her female subjects with wit and intelligence, rendering them more than just mere objects of beauty.

A student in Paris in the late 1880s, the artist was influenced by her firsthand exposure to French impressionism.

Her light-filled palette and gestural style invite comparisons with many of her contemporaries, including William Merritt Chase, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt.

Cecilia Beaux | Sita and Sarita, 1894 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Masterpieces of the Musée d’Orsay

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876

This painting is doubtless Renoir's most important work of the mid 1870's and was shown at the Impressionist exhibition in 1877.

Though some of his friends appear in the picture, Renoir's main aim was to convey the vivacious and joyful atmosphere of this popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre.

The study of the moving crowd, bathed in natural and artificial light, is handled using vibrant, brightly coloured brushstrokes.

The somewhat blurred impression of the scene prompted negative reactions from contemporary critics.

This portrayal of popular Parisian life, with its innovative style and imposing format, a sign of Renoir's artistic ambition, is one of the masterpieces of early Impressionism. | © Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919) | Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Odilon Redon | Portrait of Marie Botkine, 1900

Odilon Redon | Portrait of the ceramist Marie Botkin, pastel | Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

Portrait of Marie Botkine

Autor: Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

Date: 1900

Style: Symbolism

Genre: Portrait

Media: Pastel, paper

Dimensions: 48 x 64 cm

Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

Claude Monet | Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1865-1866

From: Musée d’Orsay, Paris

This fragment, there is a second also in the Musée d'Orsay, is one of the remaining parts of the monumental Luncheon on the Grass by Monet.

The work was started in the spring of 1865 and measured over four metres by six.

It was intended to be both a tribute and a challenge to Manet whose painting of the same title had been the subject of much sarcasm from the public as well as the critics when it was exhibited in the Salon des Refusés in 1863.

But the project was abandoned in 1866, just before the Salon where Monet intended to show it, opened.

Edgar Degas | Repasseuses / Le Stiratrici, 1884-1886

Degas often made portraits of his family and friends but he was also an attentive observer of the working world in millinery workshops or laundries.

Only Daumier before him had taken an interest in washerwoman, who became one of Degas's favorite subjects between 1869-1895.

At first he painted single figures seen against the light, picked out sharply against the white linen.

Then, about 1884-1886, he dwelled more heavily on the subject, this time depicting two women in a laundry.

Claude Monet at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine.

It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898-1900.

The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848-1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture and photography.

It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet - 86 paintings (another main collection of his paintings is in the Musée Marmottan Monet) including The Saint-Lazare Station, The Rue Montorgueil in Paris. Celebration of 30 June 1878, Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars, Rouen Cathedral. Harmony in Blue, Blue Water Lilies, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Haystacks, The Magpie, Women in the Garden - Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh.

Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.