Luncheon at Berneval

In July 1898 Renoir rented a chalet at Berneval, a small seaside village just east of Dieppe, and brought his family there for the summer. Julie Manet came as well. She was the daughter of the painter Berthe Morisot, orphaned three years earlier, and Renoir, together with the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, had been keeping a watchful eye on her ever since. This canvas stays indoors. In the foreground a boy sits bent over a book, cut off by the edge of the picture, while further back a woman lays the breakfast table and a small child in a dark suit walks toward her. The French title, Déjeuner à Berneval, has come into English both as Breakfast and as Luncheon at Berneval. The painting belongs today to a private collection.