Description
Two figures in a bright orange-red rowboat cross a wide river, one in a boater hat working the oars, the other in white beside them. A white-sailed boat drifts further out, ducks paddle near the reeds at the water’s edge, and a figure stands watching from beneath a willow on the near bank.
Painted in 1873 at Argenteuil, on the Seine northwest of Paris, the picture captures the leisure boating culture that drew Renoir and his fellow Impressionists to the town repeatedly in these years. The print keeps the boat’s orange-red vivid against the pale, shimmering water, since that saturated colour is what carries the whole composition.



