1875
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Dominant colour
Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (The Rowers' Lunch) is a 1875 oil by Auguste Renoir, a Impressionism work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
A man and a woman sit at a small outdoor table, eating lunch beside a river. The woman wears a white dress, the man a striped shirt. Trees dapple the sunlight across the table and their faces. This scene was painted on a real terrace at a riverside restaurant outside Paris. Renoir used quick, loose brushstrokes to show how light moves and changes outdoors. The couple was not wealthy — they were friends of the artist, relaxed and unposed. You can see this painting in person at the Art Institute of Chicago. (Word count: 98)
The artist; sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, July 8, 1881, for 600 francs [per John Collins to the Art Institute of Chicago, July 28, 1997, copy in curatorial object file. See also Colin B. Bailey, with the assistance of John B. Collins, Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Canada/Yale University Press, 1997), p. 308, n. 8.]. Alphonse Legrand, Paris, by November 21, 1887 [this and the two following per John Rewald, “Theo van Gogh, Goupil, and the Impressionists,” Gazette des beaux-arts 81, 1248 (Jan. 1973), p. 14; and Rewald, “Theo van Gogh, Goupil, and the…
Paris, 11, rue Le Peletier, 2e exposition de peinture [second Impressionist exhibition], Apr. 1876, cat. 221, as Déjeûner chez Fournaise. Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings from the Collection of Mrs. Potter Palmer, May 10–Nov. 1910, cat. 51, as Breakfast by the river. Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, May 23–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 350. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Manet and Renoir, Nov. 29, 1933–Jan. 1, 1934, no cat. no. (ill.). Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture…
Catalogue de la 2e exposition de peinture, exh. cat. (Alcan-Lévy, 1876), p. 21, cat. 221. Émile Porcheron, “Promenades d’un flâneur: Les impressionnistes,” Le soleil, Apr. 4, 1876, pp. 2–3. Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings from the Collection of Mrs. Potter Palmer, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1910), cat. 51. Art Institute of Chicago, “Library Notes,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 15, 5 (Sep.–Oct. 1921), p. 161 (ill.). Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, and Paintings, pt. 2, Paintings (Art Institute of Chicago, 1922), p. 69, cat. 844. Art…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born on 25 February 1841 in Limoges, the son of a tailor and a seamstress.
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