La Grenouillere

Painted next to Monet

In the summer of 1869, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet set up their easels together at La Grenouillère, a popular bathing place and floating café on the Seine near Bougival. Both painted the little round island, the bathers and the boats. Their pictures are often seen as the birth of Impressionism.

This version by Renoir belongs to the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

A crowd on the island

On the small island, Parisians in summer clothes stroll and chat under a tree. Renoir paid more attention to the people than Monet did, painting dresses, hats and parasols in soft, feathery strokes.

Rowing boats in the foreground

In front, empty rowing boats float on the water, their orange and green hulls reflected in broken strokes of colour.

The floating café

At the right, part of the floating café appears, with its striped roof and signs for hiring boats. People came by train from Paris to swim, row and dance there.

Questions about La Grenouillère

Where was it painted?

At La Grenouillère on the Seine near Bougival, in 1869.

Where is this version?

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

Did Monet paint it too?

Yes. Monet and Renoir painted the place side by side.

How large is it?

About 66 × 81 centimetres, oil on canvas.

Sources and image credit

• Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
• Wikimedia Commons: La Grenouillère (Google Art Project)

Public-domain reproduction of La Grenouillère (1869), via Wikimedia Commons (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.