Even Jean’s baby portraits are more feminine than Pierre’s, who was soon replaced as a model by his younger brother. Upon the birth of Jean, Renoir was ecstatic, albeit surprised by the gender of the baby. Renoir’s contemporary, Berthe Morisot predicted Aline would give birth to a girl in a letter she sent to Renoir before Jean’s birth. (White 200) Perhaps Renoir agreed with her, as he did everything he could upon the birth of Jean to make him fulfill the role of a daughter, including giving him a name that is pronounced the same as its female counterpart “Jeanne.” He does not let the fact that Jean is biologically a boy stop him from painting him in a feminine manner over and over again. This begins in a series of baby paintings where Jean posed with his nurse Gabrielle. It is in these paintings that Renoir’s obsession with his sons’ hair first developed. Gabrielle and Jean (1895) show the two playing with miniature figures. Jean’s head is bare, and his golden locks are clearly visible and highly reflective. 
In this picture his hair is not long, as he is not old enough, but it is not short either. This does not seem peculiar yet, as Jean is still at the age where most parents would chose not have their baby’s hair cut. Similarly, In Gabrielle, Jean, and a Girl (1895) Jean is positioned in Gabrielle’s lap, but this time he reaches for an orange that a girl, one of the neighbor’s children, hands to him. (Bailey 224) His hair is similar to the previous painting, but slightly longer. Now it becomes clear what Bailey meant when he said that the paintings could be dated based on the length of Jean’s hair (Bailey 224). However, if one did not know the year of the painting and Jean’s year of birth, it would not be difficult for the viewer to mistake baby Jean for the girl mentioned in the title and her for Jean, as there is nothing indicating that the baby is not a girl. In these paintings Jean definitely looks more feminine than his older brother Pierre had appeared at a similar age, but as he is still a baby, it is not terribly obvious that Renoir feminized his son.
This changes in Renoir’s later paintings of Jean. The absolute most feminine of Renoir’s depictions of Jean came just when he was approaching six, when his blond hair fell past his shoulders. This is the age at which he was taunted by fellow young boys for his looks and called “girl” or “mop-head.” (Renoir 367) It is easy to see why poor Jean received such torment by looking at some of Renoir’s paintings of him at this time. In paintings titled Jean Renoir Sewing (1898) and Child with a Hoop (1899) Jean truly is unmistakable from a girl. In both of these paintings Jean’s blonde hair hangs past his shoulders and is adorned with a colorful ribbon.Furthermore, The title of the later is not Boy with a Hoop to contrast with Renoir’s Girl with a Hoop (1885). Rather it is Child with a Hoop. This suggests that Renoir wanted to erase or change his son’s gender into that of a girl.
Yet even though both of these paintings show Jean in dresses, it is his hair, not the dresses that truly feminize Jean and turn him into a “daughter”. The dresses could have been some elaborate game of dress-up on Renoir’s part, but the long hair represents a conscious, more permanent decision to make his son appear as a daughter. Renoir justified his sons’ long hair by insisting that it would protect them from the sun’s harmful rays. (Renoir 305) However, this is contradicted by Jean’s recollection of the eventual cutting of his hair. The decision finally came when he was to be sent to the Sainte-Croiz School, which prohibited his long hair. Jean recalls, “The entire household was present at the solemn event,” and although his mother and Gabrielle were upset by the event, it was his father who was most disappointed, as he thought “of all the pictures he might still have painted of my [Jean’s] thatch.” (qtd. Renoir 367). This shows that there was clearly more to Renoir’s motives for keeping his son’s hair long than simply his concern about the sun. It came from a desire to paint his son’s hair. Renoir was more concerned with maintaining a feminine model to sustain his desire to paint feminine locks than he was with depicting or even allowing his son’s individuality as a boy. 
Above: Renoir, Pierre Auguste. Gabrielle and Jean. Private Collection.
Renoir, Pierre Auguste. Gabrielle, Jean, and a Girl. Collection Mrs. H. Harris Jonas, New York.
Renoir, Pierre Auguste. Jean Renoir Sewing. Art Institute of Chicago, IL.
Renoir, Pierre Auguste. Child with a Hoop. Private Collection.
Renoir, Pierre Auguste, Girl with a Hoop. National Gallery, Washington, DC.