Alphonsine Fournaise

For about 15 years Renoir kept coming out to Chatou, a riverside spot on the Seine just west of Paris where a family named Fournaise ran a restaurant and boat-hire with a wide balcony over the water. In 1879 he painted the owner's daughter, Alphonsine Fournaise, leaning on the railing of that balcony in a straw hat with a red ribbon. Behind her the river runs toward a railway bridge, a single sail slipping past. She was in her thirties and already widowed, and was known as the soul of the house, a friend and confidante to the painters who gathered there. Two years later Renoir set his large Luncheon of the Boating Party on the very same terrace, with several of the same regulars around the table.