Renoir traveled to the French colony of Algeria twice in 1881, seeking the dazzling light and exotic subject matter made famous (and marketable) by Eugène Delacroix, a great Romantic painter, some fifty years before. Frustrated by the reluctance of Muslim women to pose for him, Renoir often hired Pieds-Noirs—French nationals living in Algeria—to pose as models, dressing them in native costumes and darkening their hair with his brush.
