Pierre-Auguste Renoir – After the Luncheon

After the Luncheon – three people under a green arbour

After the Luncheon is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1879. The original measures 100.5 x 81.3 cm, is catalogued as SG 176 and hangs in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. Our hand-painted painting After the Luncheon is worked in oil on canvas, in eight sizes from 65 x 80 to 140 x 170 cm.

The museum’s own record names the sitters: Renoir’s brother Edmond, the actress Ellen Andrée and the model Marguerite Legrand, in the arbour of the Cabaret d’Olivier on Montmartre. The work has been in the museum since 1910. Readers who like this kind of table scene will know the larger terrace of the Luncheon of the Boating Party.

The end of a meal, when nobody is hurrying any more

Three figures sit at the end of a meal under a green arbour. At the left a young woman in a pale blue-green jacket faces us, a white hat trimmed with violets on her fair hair, raising a small glass; a sprig of violets is pinned at her breast. Behind her a second woman stands in black, with a large dark hat and a wide white lace jabot, looking out at us. At the right a bearded man in dark clothes leans down to light a cigarette. On the white cloth stand a cut-glass carafe, a tumbler, two flowered cups and a red matchbox.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. Faces and lace are built from fine, soft strokes, while the foliage of the arbour is a run of short separated touches that let the ground show through in places. A hand-painted canvas keeps that difference in the way the paint sits, which printed paper cannot imitate.

In the room

The scene is green and white and is allowed to draw the eye, so it works well in a dining room or a living room, best above the table, where the same thing actually happens. On a modest wall 80 x 100 cm is enough, on a large one 110 x 130 cm; on a tall wall it carries 140 x 170 cm, with 130 x 160 cm as the step before. Under 65 x 80 cm the glasses and the dishes on the table merge and the scene loses the thing that shows the meal is over.

What you receive

We paint the canvas to order, by hand and for you alone, so every copy is made on its own; the canvas is usually painted and dried within three to four weeks. If you prefer, we will paint it in a size that is not on the list. Before despatch we send you a photograph of the finished canvas for your approval, and only then does the painting go out. After the Luncheon arrives stretched on a wooden frame and ready to hang, wrapped in protective film and in rigid packaging, with no further stretching or finishing needed.

• Subject: three people at the end of a meal under a green arbour, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 65 x 80 cm to 140 x 170 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: the scene is set after the meal rather than during it – which is why nobody in it is in a hurry

See also:

• Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children
• At the Theatre (La Première Sortie)
• Luncheon of the Boating Party