On this day in 1841 Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, France, (yeah, the same place the amazing enamel and porcelain comes from.) Moving to Paris as a child he later found singing and not painting to be his calling and took up with a teacher until his family could no longer afford it so he decided to become an apprentice to a porcelain master. His family lived close to the Musée du Louvre, where he would spend most of his time and he discovered he had a higher calling. In 1862 he began to study art and met Sisley, Bazille and one Claude Monet. The famed Paris Salon began to fight back against the Impressionist of the time and in response the banded together to create their own show, the Impressionist Exhibition of 1874.
In 1876 he painted the Bal du Moulin de la Galette one of his most famous works that can be see at the Musée d'Orsay. The Dance at the Cake Mill, was painted at his studio in Montmartre that he created from an abandoned building on the Rue Cortot. At the time most of the artists living and working in Paris moved to the Montmartre area as it was less expensive. Together they would live, work and create some of the Impressionists masterpieces of the time.
Seeing this piece in person is amazing, the movement and the realness of the dancers and the people sitting back talking and taking in the Paris life is a perfect example of what it is like in Paris even today.