“I went to see this picture [Raphael's painting 'Madonna della Sedia' which Renoir saw in Florence in 1882] just to have a good laugh – and I found myself in front of the most wonderfully free, solid, simple, alive painting it is possible to imagine – arms and legs of real flesh, and what a touching expression of maternal tenderness.”

— Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 161-162 : (1882), in a letter to Vollard

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir 44

French painter and sculptor 1841–1919

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