This portrait from Renoir’s brush depicts the spouse of Victor Choquet, a customs officer who was the first to start buying impressionist artwork. Madame Choquet is in her apartment on the rue de Rivoli in Paris. She stands against the light in front of a big French window with an amazing view of the Tuileries Gardens. 

The landscape dissolves in sunbeams, and the sunlight becomes the active integrating component of the composition, picturesque and emotional. This light, with its fragile sparkle, becomes a part of the blue reverberant chord of Madame Choquet’s dress.