Luncheon of the Boating Party (in French: Le déjeuner des canotiers) was painted by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1880 – 1881. The subject of the painting is a group of Renoir’s friends relaxing on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise along the Seine river in Chatou, France.
The painter and art patron Gustave Caillebotte is seated in the lower right. Renoir’s future wife, Aline Charigot, is in the foreground playing with a small dog. The singlets of both men in the foreground and the table-cloth both work together to reflect this light and send it through the whole composition.
There has been some issue taken with the cleaning of the original art work. Due to a somewhat failed cleaning in the past, the Luncheon of the Boating Party has lost some of its original shine, reducing the harmony of the painting as it can be viewed today at the The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Our reproduced versions however contain the full harmony and color of the original Renoir composition.