Luncheon of the Boating Party
The Luncheon
Pierre-Auguste Renoir · 1880 to 1881
01
Chatou. Summer 1880.
A restaurant terrace on the Seine.
Fourteen people. Nearly all his friends.
02
Look up. The striped awning.
It wasn't there at first.
Underneath it: sky, a bridge, the far bank.
03
On the table, glasses vanish.
A wine glass, painted out.
Another turns into grapes.
04
Lower right: Gustave Caillebotte.
Painter. Collector. Friend.
05
Lower left, a woman with a little dog.
She wasn't the first to sit there.
Renoir scratched the first model out.
He painted in Aline Charigot.
Ten years later, he married her.
The whole terrace.
Every change in place.
“I'm not getting any younger.”
$125,000
Duncan Phillips first saw it in 1911.
It took him twelve years to get it.
July 1923. The deal closes at $125,000.
It is still the Phillips Collection's.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
French · Impressionism · 1841 to 1919
Sources · 5