A young woman in a deep blue dress sits beside a little girl on a sunlit terrace, surrounded by lush greenery and overlooking a river landscape. The basket rests on the terrace railing, overflowing with skeins in red, green, blue, and pink, echoing the vibrant colors of the flowers in the girl’s hat. Behind the figures, slender tree trunks and dense foliage frame the scene, leading the eye toward the shimmering surface of the river in the distance.

Renoir’s brushwork is loose and fluid in the background, with quick, impressionistic strokes that suggest the movement of water and the play of light on leaves. In contrast, the faces of the sitters are rendered with controlled, delicate brushstrokes, giving their skin a smooth, porcelain-like quality. The composition is carefully balanced, with the older girl placed slightly to the left and the younger girl to the right, their forms linked by the curve of the basket and the shared palette of their hats and clothing.

The terrace railing curves gently behind the sitters, painted in a muted blue-green that contrasts with the surrounding foliage. Sunlight falls from the upper left, illuminating the faces and hats of the two figures while casting parts of their clothing and the basket in shadow. Pierre-Auguste Renoir created Two Sisters (On the Terrace) in 1881. The title was given by Renoir himself, while its first owner, Paul Durand-Ruel, called it On the Terrace.

The painting was first shown to the public at the seventh Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1882 under the title Les deux soeurs.