Baigneuse debout, à mi-jambes [Standing bather, three quarter length]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir began printmaking in the 1890s at the urging of friends and publishers. Renoir never owned a press and did not supervise the printing of his etchings. He was more interested in the medium’s commercial possibilities than its expressive potential. Renoir’s first prints reproduced some of his earlier drawings from 1887. In total, he made about fifty prints, featuring the familiar subject matter of his paintings—portraits of friends and children as well as a series of reclining nudes and bathers, as exemplified by this etching.