Near the Lake (By the Water) — Renoir, 1880, Art Institute of Chicago, Art Postcard

Near the Lake — sometimes called By the Water — was painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir around 1880, in the years he turned again and again to leisure outdoors. Two women and a man rest on a terrace above a stretch of water, hats catching the breeze, the summer green moving around them. The painting is held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a postcard, it works for a weekend friend, for someone who plans the next picnic in their head, and for a Renoir collector building up the riverside and lake group. Browse the full Renoir postcard collection.