by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 2, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
A girl in a pale blue dress pauses with a hoop and the short stick used to roll it. One foot touches the hoop, but she looks towards us rather than setting it moving. Leaves and flowers rise behind her; the ground is a soft blend of warm and cool colour. Renoir signed and dated Girl with a Hoop 1885. The original belongs to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, as part of the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art object record. [1]
The painting joins a child’s game to the stillness of a commissioned portrait. The National Gallery’s provenance says her father, Senator Étienne Goujon, commissioned the picture. The hoop and stick suggest activity, while her direct gaze, careful clothing and full-length pose ask us to look closely at one person. In the history of Renoir’s art, that tension also reveals a mid-1880s interest in clearer figure outlines alongside a freely handled setting. The canvas itself is the strongest evidence for that visual contrast; accounts of why Renoir changed his style need separate sources. National Gallery of Art visual description and provenance. [1]
At a glance
- ArtistPierre-Auguste Renoir
- Date1885, signed and dated on the canvas
- MediumOil on canvas
- Dimensions125.7 × 76.6 cm
- CollectionNational Gallery of Art, Washington, 1963.10.58
- CommissionThe sitter’s father, Senator Étienne Goujon, according to the museum’s provenance
- SitterGoujon’s daughter; some scholarly and sale literature identifies her as Marie Goujon
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Watch on YouTubeThe game held in a portrait pose
The hoop describes a large curve from the girl’s hand down to the ground and back up beside her. Its scale nearly matches her height. A short stick hangs from her other hand. These are practical parts of the game of rolling a hoop, yet Renoir shows neither a chase nor an action in progress. The child is stationary, with a shoe braced on the lower rim. The equipment becomes a shape that frames her body and steadies the composition. National Gallery of Art visual description. [1]
Her torso turns slightly one way, her face another. The result is a portrait that feels alert without needing a dramatic gesture. The sash and ribbon repeat the blue of the dress, while dark shoes anchor the feet in the pale ground. Her long hair and the soft ruffle at the collar introduce shapes that are less regular than the hoop. Renoir makes these details visible, but he does not describe every seam or leaf with equal precision.
The garden is not a mapped place. A tree trunk rises on one side and flowering plants on the other, but the setting is mainly colour and light. This keeps the girl and hoop in front. It also makes her pose feel less like an indoor studio portrait. The outdoor background has room to move even though the sitter is still.
Face, dress and garden
The National Gallery’s close visual description notes the sitter’s brown hair, blue ribbon, pale blue dress and small dark shoes. Her face is more carefully defined than the nearby foliage. Looking at the edge of her shoulders and hands, one sees a clear figure against a garden painted with energetic green, yellow and blue touches. That distinction helps the viewer read a child as a particular sitter while experiencing the setting as a luminous whole. National Gallery of Art visual description. [1]
The palette is not limited to blue. Peach and yellow in the ground answer the cooler dress; bright greens surround the head without swallowing it. The hoop’s warm brown makes a distinct line through these soft areas. Follow that line and it guides the eye from the hands to the feet, then back upwards. The controlled circle and the loosely brushed garden have different rhythms. This formal difference is more precise than saying that everything in the painting is either “Impressionist” or “classical.”
Renoir’s mid-1880s paintings often combine a firmer figure with looser colour. The Large Bathers, which he developed during these years, pursued a more elaborate group composition. Girl with a Hoop is a commissioned child portrait, not a study for that canvas, but it shows how the desire to keep bodies legible could coexist with pleasure in broken, outdoor colour. The comparison concerns approach and period, not a documented direct preparatory link. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Great Bathers [2]; National Gallery of Art object record. [1]
Who was the girl?
The National Gallery’s ownership record is unusually informative about the original commission: Étienne Goujon was the sitter’s father, and the picture later passed to E. Chapuis, identified as her husband. That family chain shows the painting began as a portrait made for people who knew the child, rather than as an anonymous genre scene. The museum’s public title remains Girl with a Hoop. National Gallery of Art provenance. [1]
The name Marie Goujon appears in later literature. For example, a Sotheby’s scholarly lot essay refers to the Washington picture as Fillette au cerceau (Marie Goujon) while citing the 1997 Renoir’s Portraits exhibition catalogue. That supports a published identification, but the National Gallery’s web record does not itself provide her given name in the heading or description. We therefore use the name with that attribution rather than treating it as something legible from the painting. Sotheby’s, catalogue comparison citing Renoir’s Portraits [3]; National Gallery record. [1]
The visible pose tells us still less about what the sitter thought or how long she stood for Renoir. We can read her attention in the eyes and the pause in her hands. We cannot turn that observation into a diary of her feelings. Keeping that boundary makes the commissioned portrait more interesting: it presents the child through an artist’s choices while withholding her private voice.
A distinct child portrait
The documented Goujon family commission helps explain why the sitter is treated as an individual, even though she is shown with an object of play. The hoop is part of her pose and of the picture’s design. It does not make the canvas a generic scene of children at play. National Gallery of Art provenance. [1]
The portrait also differs from Renoir’s earlier A Girl with a Watering Can, whose sitter remains unidentified in the National Gallery’s record. Both put a child outdoors with an object in her hand, but this 1885 commission has a documented family link. That difference matters when a familiar type of Renoir child portrait tempts viewers to supply a name without evidence. National Gallery of Art, A Girl with a Watering Can. [4]
Ownership after the Goujon family
The painting descended to the sitter’s husband, E. Chapuis. A proposed 1920 Paris auction lot was withdrawn, after which Chapuis sold it to the dealer Paul Rosenberg. The National Gallery traces subsequent dealers and owners, including Max Silberberg of Breslau before 1931. It records the canvas in a Paris sale on 9 June 1932, where Chester Dale bought it. Dale’s 1963 bequest brought it to the National Gallery. National Gallery of Art provenance. [1]
Silberberg’s presence in that chain deserves care. The museum’s object record documents the ownership and the 1932 sale but does not, in that entry, establish why this particular painting was sold. It would be wrong to assign a motive or legal conclusion from the date alone. The ownership record should be consulted alongside any future object-specific provenance research. That distinction protects both historical accuracy and the people whose collecting histories are involved.
Looking again
Begin at the hoop, not the face. It turns a child’s toy into the painting’s main line of movement. Then look at the shoe holding it in place, and the still hand with the stick. Move upwards through the dress to the direct gaze. Finally compare the clear figure with the soft garden behind her. The picture suspends play just long enough for a portrait to happen.
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Questions about Girl with a Hoop
Renoir signed and dated it 1885. The National Gallery of Art holds it as accession 1963.10.58.
The National Gallery’s provenance names the sitter’s father, Senator Étienne Goujon, as the commissioner.
Some later scholarly and sale literature identifies her as Marie Goujon. The National Gallery’s public object record uses the title Girl with a Hoop and confirms the Goujon family commission without placing her given name in its heading.
She has the hoop and stick and one foot rests against the hoop, but she is standing still. Renoir presents the moment as a portrait pose rather than an action scene.
Discussion
What do you notice when you return to Girl With A Hoop?
How does the hoop shape the full-length portrait even though the girl is standing still?
Reader Insights
How does the hoop shape the full-length portrait even though the girl is standing still?
The National Gallery records a family commission and a long provenance chain.
Where does Renoir draw a clear figure against a more freely painted garden?
Join the Conversation
Share a close observation or a source-backed question about Renoir’s girl with a hoop.
References
- National Gallery of Art, Girl with a Hoop, 1963.10.58, object identity, visual description, commission, provenance, dimensions, exhibition history and public-domain media View source.
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Great Bathers View source.
- Sotheby’s scholarly lot essay, later published sitter identification referencing Renoir’s Portraits (1997); used with explicit qualification View source.
- National Gallery of Art, A Girl with a Watering Can, comparison with a distinct child portrait View source.
- Whole-work image: National Gallery of Art open-access image, public domain per its object page View source.
