Luncheon of the Boating Party

On the balcony of the Maison Fournaise restaurant above the Seine at Chatou, fourteen of Renoir's friends — among them his future wife Aline Charigot, cooing at her dog, and the painter Gustave Caillebotte, straddling a chair — linger over the wreckage of lunch beneath a striped awning. Painted in 1880-81 at the height of Renoir's powers, it fuses portraiture, still life, and open-air light into one dazzling ensemble. Duncan Phillips bought it in 1923, and it remains the centerpiece of the Phillips Collection in Washington and one of Impressionism's most loved paintings.