Renoir balcony

One of my favourite books is Renoir, My Father by Jean Renoir (1958). It’s a most loving and beautifully detailed account of the great Impressionist painter. Highly recommended! And here is Renoir’s beautiful Le Déjeuner des Canotiers (1881). And amazingly, below it, is the same balcony today. For many years the building was standing derelict – but it’s now been restored to comprise a museum and restaurant. (It’s the Maison Fournaise at Chatou).

La Maison Fournaise, as well as being the setting for the painting, was also much loved by Renoir and his fiance, Aline Charigot (seen in the foreground playing with the dog). Jean Renoir describes at length the leisurely Sundays the couple spent there, boating and just hanging out with friends over a good meal. The owners, the Fournaise family, also became close friends of Renoir’s, and rarely let him pay for his meal. In return, he gave them several of his paintings, which later became extremely valuable.

Most of the people in the painting have been identified. The younger Fournaises are there, as is the painter Gustave Caillebot. Edmund de Waal, the potter and writer, says in The Hare with Amber Eyes that the man in the top hat, furthest from us, is his ancestor Charles Ephrussi, who was an art collector and critic…..