By Eugênia Gorini Esmeraldo
Several tentative assumptions have been brought up regarding the identity of the model. Camesasca, in the 1979 Masp Catalogue, declares that the model is likely to have been Alphonsine Fournaise. Some authors have proposed Mme. De L. (L as in Lecomte), or a young girl from Montmartre, Nini, nicknamed “Gueule de Raie,” or even “mère Fournaise,” wife of the owner of the hotel of this same name, located on the island of Chatou. Camesasca and Drucker contend that, owing to the youthfulness of the facial features, it was the young Fournaise and not her mother. Bailey also endorses this identity. During his visits to Chatou, Renoir stayed several times at the Fournaise hotel, where he was to paint his famous work The Luncheon of the Boating Party. The owner was Alphonse Fournaise, married to Louise Braut, and it has been suggested that their eldest daughter, Louise Alphonsine, was the young girl who sat for the portrait Lady Smiling (Portrait of Alphonsine Fournaise). Married to Louis-Joseph Papillon, she used to help her father in the management of the restaurant and his boats for hire. According to marchand Ambroise Vollard, Renoir always referred himself to her as “la gracieuse madame Papillon”. Renoir made four more portraits of Alphonsine. The painting is dated 1875 and depicts a young girl with sensitive features, wearing dark attire with a white collar adorned by a large bow of silk and tulle, with a serene look and a slight smile on her well-defined lips. The hair is symmetrically parted in the middle, covering part of the ears, and pulled back in a chignon at the top of the head. The bright background and the indirect light bring to mind, according to Camesasca, the light of the River Seine, which runs through Chatou. There is a touch of immaterial translucence in the painting, also found in other works by Renoir.

— Eugênia Gorini Esmeraldo, 1998