Renoir painted Gabrielle Renard (1879–1959) more than two hundred times. In several of the portraits, she wears an informal, square-necked gown. By 1908, she had been employed in Renoir’s household for fourteen years, as a nanny, housekeeper, model, and companion to the aging artist.
Gabrielle Renard developed a strong bond with the infant, Jean Renoir, that would last throughout their lives. She introduced him to the Guignol puppet shows that were held in the Montmartre. Gabrielle was fascinated by the newly invented motion picture, and when Jean Renoir was only a few years old, she took him to see his first film. He became a renowned film maker.
During the final years of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's life he suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis, but continued to paint with her help. When the family moved to a farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer near the Mediterranean coast, seeking a better climate for Renoir's arthritis, Gabrielle moved with them. While he worked in the studio at "Les Collettes", Gabrielle would place the paint brush between his crippled fingers.
Devoted to her cousin's family, Gabrielle Renard did not marry until 1921, when the Renoir children were grown. Her husband, Conrad Hensler Slade (1871–1955), was an aspiring painter from a wealthy American family.
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