Luncheon of the Boating Party

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted this joyous scene at the Maison Fournaise restaurant on the Seine in 1881. Fourteen figures, artists, actresses, a seamstress, and bourgeois gentlemen, linger over the remains of lunch on a sun-dappled terrace.

Renoir included many friends: the woman with the dog is Aline Charigot, his future wife. The man in the straw hat leaning over her is Gustave Caillebotte. The scene captures the leisure culture that Impressionism celebrated.

The work at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, not the National Gallery, but often visited on the same trip.