Description
Luncheon – two people at a small table, seen from close to
| Year of creation: | 1875 |
| Original size: | 60.0 cm x 49.2 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia |
Luncheon (Le Déjeuner) is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1875. The original measures 60.0 x 49.2 cm, is catalogued as BF45 and hangs in The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia. Our art reproduction Luncheon is painted by hand in oil on canvas, in eight sizes from 70 x 60 to 150 x 120 cm.
The wall behind is panelled in warm ochre below and papered pale blue with a scrolling frieze above. A straw boater hangs on the chair at the lower edge – a small detail that says the couple are not in town but on an outing by the river, the same world Renoir would paint on a larger scale in the Luncheon of the Boating Party. The scene is quiet: nobody is speaking, and the meal is ending.
The white cloth that carries the whole scene
A man and a woman sit at a small table laid with a white cloth, seen close to. At the left the woman is turned away from us in a pale cream jacket, her dark hair pinned up, reaching towards a glass of red wine; a blue garment is thrown over the chair behind her. At the right a bearded man in a dark blue coat leans in. Between them stand a glass, a knife, a blue-and-white tureen with its lid, a long loaf on a board and a dark green bottle.
Why hand-painted, not a print
Our version is not a print. The white cloth is built from many thin layers of blue, grey and rose set wet into wet, while the loaf and the tureen are given with dense, short strokes. A hand-painted painting keeps that difference in the way the paint sits, which printed paper cannot imitate.
In the room
The subject is warm, blue and ochre and repays hanging in a dining room or a kitchen, though it works in a living room too. Because the scene is seen from close to, it takes a wall with little space in front of it – a hallway, a breakfast corner, or the narrow wall beside the table. On a smaller wall 80 x 65 cm works, on a larger one 120 x 100 cm; on a broad wall it carries 150 x 120 cm, with 130 x 110 cm as the step before. Under 70 x 60 cm the dishes on the cloth merge and the table is left an empty area.
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. Luncheon (Le Déjeuner) 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: a man and a woman at a small table with a white cloth, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
- Sizes: 8 sizes, from 70 x 60 cm to 150 x 120 cm, another size on request
- Detail worth knowing: the two sit close and neither looks towards us – the scene is taken from the table in the same room, not arranged
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