Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The Daydream, also known as Portrait of Jeanne Samary, shows a young actress with the Comédie-Française who debuted in 1875 as Dorine in Tartuffe. She came from a strong musical and theatrical background: her father was a cellist, and two of her maternal aunts, as well as her grandmother, had been actresses. She lived on Rue Frochot, not far from Renoir’s own residence, and became one of his frequent muses—he painted her several times, including in The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette and in The Swing (in which she was the main subject). At some point around 1877, Samary became Renoir’s lover, a move commemorated in the painting we present today.
In 1880, Samary married the man named Paul Lagarde, with whom she had three children. Shortly before her death, she wrote Les gourmandises de Charlotte, a children's book for her children. She died in 1890 of typhoid fever at the age of 33 and was buried in the Passy Cemetery in Paris.
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