Luncheon of the Boating Party with figures, the other all but empty, save for the two figures of the proprietor's daughter Louise-Alphonsine Fournaise and her brother, Alphonse Fournaise, Jr, which are made prominent by this contrast. In this painting Renoir has captured a great deal of light. The main focus of light is coming from the large opening in the balcony, beside the large singleted man in the hat. The singlets of both men in the foreground and the table-cloth all work together to reflect this light and send it through the whole composition. As he often did in his paintings, Renoir included several of
The Boating Party in gardens. It is also one of her largest oil paintings. In 1890 Cassatt visited the great Japanese Print exhibition at the ecole de Beaux-arts in Paris. Mary Cassatt owned Japanese prints by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806). The exhibition at Durand-Ruel of Japanese art proved the most important influence on Cassatt. Frederick A. Sweet suggests that Cassatt may have been inspired by Édouard Manet's "Boating" from 1874."Boating" was exhibited at the (fourth?) Impressionist Exhibition of 1879, where it was not well received. Cassatt however, convinced her friend Louisine Havemeyer to buy it. Much of the work from the Havemeyer collection was