16 Fascinating Facts About Renoir’s ‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’

Luncheon of the Boating Party is one of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s most famous works. It’s also one of the best-known depictions of an alfresco lunch outing in art history. Set in a cafe overlooking the Seine, the painting captures a joyous moment among friends. But the history around this iconic Impressionist work makes it all the richer.

Luncheon of the Boating Party breaks from early Impressionist interests.

In the early days of the Impressionist movement, city scenes were one of the dominant themes. By 1881, when Renoir finished Luncheon of the Boating Party, Impressionism was moving into new terrain—specifically, the suburbs. The scene captured in Luncheon of the Boating Party takes place roughly a 30-minute train ride from the hubbub of Paris.

Renoir began working on Luncheon of the Boating Party in 1879.

Barbara Ehrlich White writes in Renoir: An Intimate Biography that it took Renoir 16 months to complete the painting, which he began in September 1879, because he took a tumble from his bicycle in January 1880. Rather than stop working on it entirely, though, he used his left hand, writing to a friend, “I have been enjoying working with my left hand; it is a lot of fun and it's even better than what I did with the right. I think that it was a good thing that I broke my arm. It allows me to make progress.” He completed the painting in February 1881. His dealer bought it for 6000 francs.

The painting showed new appreciation for dimension and definition.

About four years before creating Luncheon of the Boating Party, Renoir painted a similarly ambitious scene set in Paris, Dance at Le moulin de la Galette (above). As with Luncheon of the Boating Party, the painting features a social setting on a sunny day, offering an intimate peek into the lives of French people. However, the open brushwork in this 1876 piece gives Dance a flatness that is rejected in Luncheon. Luncheon’s more defined borders and greater attention to contouring gives its subjects an almost 3D appearance.

It’s one of Renoir’s largest paintings.

Luncheon of the Boating Party measures 51 inches by 68 inches.

Its inspiration was a popular French hangout.

The Maison Fournaise of Chatou overlooks the Seine River and was a destination for diners across class lines. As depicted in Luncheon of the Boating Party, businessmen, socialites, seamstresses, and artists were all frequent customers of this restaurant. Renoir had a fascination with the place, frequently painting there and recruiting models from its patrons. “I was always stuck at Fournaise,” he reportedly once said. “I found as many superb girls there to paint as I could desire.”

The restaurant can still be visited today.

Maison Fournaise shuttered in 1906, but its historical importance inspired the people of Chatou to spearhead a restoration project in 1990 that brought the restaurant back to its former glory. It also now boasts a museum and a craft shop that celebrate its Impressionist heritage.

Luncheon of the Boating Party is a portrait of Renoir’s dearest friends.

Renoir painted the scene both at the restaurant and in his studio, where he had his models—who were also his friends—sit separately. Far at the back, in a top hat, is noted art collector and historian Charles Ephrussi. He is speaking with poet Jules Laforgue. To the right, Renoir’s pals Eugène Pierre Lestringuez and Paul Lhote are flirting with renowned actress Jeanne Samary. Meanwhile, Renoir’s affluent patron and fellow painter Gustave Caillebotte sits in the lower right corner, conversing with actress Angèle Legault and Italian journalist Adrien Maggiolo.

Elizabeth Steele, head of conservation at the Phillps Collection, which owns the painting, told Washington City Paper in 2017 that “Although it appears that Renoir has just caught a moment in time—which he has successfully done—he did it after laboring over the picture a great deal. There’s almost not a figure or thing on the table that wasn’t altered or slightly adjusted.”

The girl with the puppy became Renoir’s wife and recurring model ...

Seamstress by day and muse by night, Aline Charigot carried on a passionate romance with the Impressionist painter. The two had a child named Pierre in 1885 and officially wed in 1890. In the course of their relationship, Renoir repeatedly returned to capturing her beauty with works like Boating Couple, Madame Renoir With a Dog, and Motherhood.

... But she wasn’t supposed to be in the painting.

Interestingly, Charigot wasn’t originally in The Luncheon of the Boating Party. “Charigot did come to take the place of a figure in the painting that he removed because he was frustrated with that model,” Eliza Rathbone, curator emerita at the Phillips Collection, told Washington City Paper. “We don’t know all the reasons why. Maybe she was always late. ... [Renoir] called her a tart. She was no help at all.” The artist painted over her, replacing her with Charigot and her pup.

The Fournaise family is well-represented.

Alphonse Fournaise opened the Maison Fournaise in 1860. Twenty years later, its grandeur would be captured along with his children, all of which were named for him. The lady draped over the terrace railing is thought to be Alphonsine Fournaise. Her brother Alphonse Fournaise, Jr. can be spotted leaning against that same rail in the lower left corner.

A noted bon vivant makes a sly appearance in the work.

In the painting, former mayor of colonial Saigon Baron Raoul Barbier—pictured wearing a bowler with his back to the viewer—flirts with Miss Fournaise.

The woman with the glass is a renowned actress and model.

Ellen Andrée stands out at the center of the painting. She is in the midst of a crowd yet isolated, talking to no one. The French actress is best remembered as a model for Impressionist masters, having appeared in Luncheon of the Boating Party, Édouard Manet’s The Plum and Edgar Degas’s controversial L’Absinthe. Her pose in Luncheon also inspired a pivotal scene in the acclaimed 2001 French film Amelie (above).

Luncheon of the Boating Party highlights a shift in French society.

This mingling of men and women from different walks of life reflected how the divisions of class in French culture were dissolving to create the new bourgeoisie.

It was celebrated upon its premiere.

Luncheon of the Boating Party debuted in 1882 at the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition, where three critics singled it out as the best piece in the show. Paul de Charry wrote in Le Pays, “It is fresh and free without being too bawdy,” while Armand Silvestre declared it “one of the best things [Renoir] has painted … It is one of the most beautiful pieces that this insurrectionist art by independent artist has produced.”

An ardent fan brought the French masterpiece to America.

In the wake of the deaths of his brother and father within a year of each other, American art collector Duncan Phillips—founder of Washington D.C.’s Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art—attended an exhibition in New York City where he spotted Luncheon of the Boating Party. It moved him so profoundly that he became obsessed.

The painting was then part of the private collection of Renoir patron Paul Durand-Ruel. But following his death in 1922, Durand-Ruel’s sons put the piece up for sale, and Phillips snatched it up for $125,000 (around $2.3 million today). He sailed to France to secure its purchase, and spent his entire year’s art-buying budget on this one work.

Phillips made it his mission to bring the evolving form to the United States, and he considered Luncheon of the Boating Party not just one of the gems of his collection but “one of the greatest paintings in the world.” Legend has it that fellow collector Dr. Albert C. Barnes once said to Phillips, “That’s the only Renoir you have, isn’t it?’,” to which Phillips said, “It’s the only one I need.”

A Hollywood tough guy fantisized about stealing Luncheon of the Boating Party.

During Hollywood’s Golden Age, actor Edward G. Robinson was best known for playing gangsters in movies like Key Largo (1948) and Little Caesar (1931). Off screen, he was a passionate art enthusiast who famously said, “For over 30 years I made periodic visits to Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party in a Washington museum, and stood before that magnificent masterpiece hour after hour, day after day, plotting ways to steal it.”

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