Boating

Édouard Manet painted Boating beside the Seine River in the summer of 1874. He spent time there with Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, whose outdoor painting encouraged him to use brighter colors and looser brushstrokes. Even so, Manet kept an independent career and never joined the Impressionists' group exhibitions. The painting also shows his interest in the bold designs of Japanese woodblock prints. When it appeared at the Paris Salon in 1879, the American artist Mary Cassatt called it 'the last word in painting.' She later encouraged the collectors Louisine and H. O. Havemeyer to buy it, and their collection eventually brought it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.