Highest Price Ever?

The Phillips Memorial Gallery, of Washington, D. C, according to news despatches, has bought Auguste Renoir's Le Dejeuner des Canotiers a Bougival, long the property of M. Durand Ruel, the dealer-collector, at a price rumored to be the "highest ever paid for a modern painting." Durand Ruel had previously refused $150,000 for it but apparently the overtures of the Washington Gallery were goldenly persuasive.

The picture was painted in 1881 and has been seen in public but little, though M. Durand Ruel lent it to a Renoir exhibition in Paris last Winter. The scene is a famous French restaurant, and the artist's wife, with her dog and two or three artistic friends, including Caillebotte, are in the composition. The size is 51 by 69 inches.