Modern Life
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Luncheon of the Boating Party
1880–81
Oil on canvas, 130.2 × 175.6 cm. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Renoir's friends linger after lunch on a restaurant balcony at Chatou, west of Paris. It joins group portrait, still life and landscape in one large canvas.
- No preparatory drawings are known, and scans show repainted sitters: Renoir seems to have composed it on the canvas itself. Working directly, rather than from studies, suited the Impressionists' approach.
- Painted mostly on the balcony of the Fournaise family's restaurant.
- Aline Charigot, Renoir's future wife, plays with a small dog.
- The painter Gustave Caillebotte sits backward on his chair.
- Duncan Phillips bought it in 1923 for his Washington gallery.
Chatou, on the Seine, drew Parisians on their days off. The restaurant owner's son leans on the railing; the woman resting her elbows on it is thought to be his sister.
Themes
Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain