Antique

Phillips Collection curator Eliza Rathbone says Renoir was "at the height of his powers" when in he painted Luncheon of the Boating Party.

In 1880, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, age 41, wrote to a friend that he was in a riverside town near Paris painting oarsmen. He'd been "itching" to do it for a long time: "I'm not getting any younger," he wrote, "and didn't want to defer this little festivity." Now that painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party, is the star of a new exhibition at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

The painting shows 14 young people having a wonderful time on a sunny balcony overlooking the Seine. Lunch is over — there are half-full wine bottles, golden grapes and pears on the white tablecloth — and now they're relaxing, talking and flirting.

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