Bathers Playing with a Crab

Two young bathers are shown at the water’s edge, one kneeling over the crab that gives the picture its title, the scene carried out in the ripe, rubicund color of Renoir’s late years. The subject belongs to the long series of bathing women through which Renoir, in his final decades, sought to combine the monumental figure tradition of the French eighteenth century with the broken color of Impressionism. The warm flesh tones, the firm drawing and the relaxed classicism of the pose anticipate the great bather compositions that followed, making this small canvas a pivotal work in the late style.