Luncheon of the Boating Party

Renoir's friends on a terrace above the Seine under a red-and-white striped awning: a woman in a flowered straw hat holding a small dog, oarsmen in white singlets and boaters, bottles and glasses and a bunch of grapes left on the cloth. Everyone in it was someone he knew, painted over two summers at a riverside restaurant at Chatou in 1880 and 1881.

The tablecloth is a wide near-white field and the awning stripes run soft, so the faces and hats are where it starts. Finished size 68.5 x 50.8cm.