This formal portrait of the talented actress Jeanne Samary from the Comedie Francaise was painted for the Paris Salon of 1879. Jeanne looks natural and graceful; the artist has captured a transient state, nuances of sensation and mood manifested in a light movement, an incomplete gesture, a shadow of a smile, a vivid glance. ‘Renoir created the image of the Parisienne,' commented Renoir's friend, the painter Cezanne.