Luncheon of the Boating Party painting, combining figures, still-life, and landscape in one work, depicts a group of Renoir's friends relaxing on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise restaurant 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, an affenpinscher; she replaced an earlier woman who sat for the painting but with whom Renoir became annoyed. On the table is fruit and wine. The diagonal of the railing serves to demarcate the two halves of the composition, one densely packed
The Boating Party her exhibition in 1893 at Durand-Ruel's gallery had been well received (footnote: the exhibition contained 98 items.); and the French state had decided to purchase one of her paintings for the Musée du Luxembourg. "The Boating Party" depicts an unknown woman, a baby and a man in a sailboat. The boat has a canoe stern, is boomless, and has three thwarts. The inside of the boat is described as yellow. It is an unusual painting in Cassatt's œuvre. While it does show her familiar theme of a mother and child, most of her other paintings are set in interiors or