It was only in the late years of his life that the French artist Renoir, already honored for his painting, extended his conception of the human figure into sculptural form. ... The late turn to a new medium was particularly remarkable in that Renoir was, at the time, so crippled by arthritis that most of the physical labor of the sculpture had to be performed by assistants. ...

In all of these late figures, Renoir's sense of human warmth and vitality carries over from his painting with remarkable freshness. Even the distinctive sense of space and light surrounding the figure is transposed into solid form, by the use of hollow spaces, and a surface of great animation that captures a play of lights and shadows over the contours.  Source: Bulletin, February 1965.