Highly acclaimed as one of the most famous French paintings of modern times, as well as one of the best the artist had painted, Luncheon of the Boating Party, reflecting a fluidity of brush stroke, and a flickering light, is one of the final works of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, depicting a sociable scene from his early life.
However, it took sixteen arduous months for the artist to complete the canvas with a group of his friends relaxing and enjoying food, drinks and engaged in conversation on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise in Chatou, a beloved floating restaurant moored along the Seine River. Measuring an impressive 51 by 68 inches, one among the largest canvases Renoir had ever made, it was painted in 1881, at the height of his Impressionist career, and was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1882. Representing one of the most idyllic images of its charming period and Impressionism, the painting is now in the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.
The painting, set on the balcony of a floating restaurant, overlooking the Seine River, Luncheon of the Boating Party depicts a group of Renoir’s friends, standing and sitting in an assorted arrangement, relaxing and enjoying their togetherness on a sunny afternoon under a wide canopy.
The group includes Aline Charigot, a well dressed young seamstress with the flowered bonnet, who can be seen in the foreground on the left, playing with a small dog, whom Renoir would marry later, in 1890. She seems to be aloof, and different from the others in the group, the only member who is not engaged in conversation or flirting, but only interested in her pet.
Renoir often included his close friends is his paintings and in the painting, the burly man, who is surveying the scene, leaning against the railing, is identified as Alphonse Fournaise Jr, son of the restaurant owner, while the man in the centre, seated with his back to the viewer, is Baron Raoul Barbier, a former cavalry officer, speaking to Louise-Alphonsine Fournaise, the daughter of the owner, who is resting casually on her elbows on the railing.
The woman in the middle of the canvas, drinking from a glass is the accomplished actress Ellen Andrée, who was also the model of Degas’s Absinthe Drinker, and the top-hatted man behind her is Charles Ephrussi, a banker and the editor of Gazette des beaux-arts, chatting with Jules Laforgue, a poet, critic, and also Ephrussi’s personal secretary.
In the lower right foreground of the paintings, the young man, complete with a straw hat is Gustave Caillebotte, fellow Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte, sitting backwards in his chair, next to actress Angèle Legault and Italian journalist Adrien Maggiolo.
To create the scene depicted in his Luncheon of the Boating Party, Renoir masterly used shape, space and colour, along with the figures, still-life, and landscape in one. Although the painting represents Impressionism, and was created at the height of his career as an Impressionist, Renoir painted each figure in the canvas either separately or in smaller groups in his studio, which is a deviation from his contemporaries, and shortly after completing it, he began to use more traditional methods of painting. He suggested movement in his figures through loose brushwork, and the gesture and expression of the group members. Working in bright and warm colours, Renoir masterly captured the effects of the light in the balcony, diffused by the canopy, and reflected by the table cloth and the attire of the two men in the foreground of the canvas. Luncheon of the Boating Party is one of his last works of Renoir that captured a pleasant friendly scene from his early life.