Luncheon of the Boating Party
From $340
By room
Paintings for the dining room
Seen across a table, at seated height, for an hour at a time. Social subjects, warm floors, and the one room where 'busy' is a feature.
A dining-room painting is looked at from a chair, not from the door. That changes everything: hang it lower than you would elsewhere — centre at 55–58 inches, or at the eye level of a seated guest if the table sits against the wall — and choose a subject that rewards long looking: a crowd, a dance, a table of its own.
Renoir painted the genre's definitive canvas (Luncheon of the Boating Party) and it is the safest strong choice on this list. Bal du moulin de la Galette and Degas' dance class work the same way: many figures, no single gaze, warm light that flatters candlelight and bulbs alike.
One warning about size: the dining room painting is usually the widest wall in the house, which tempts everyone into a 36 × 48 canvas. Do it only if the table is equally generous; a huge painting over a small table inverts the room's proportions.
Getting the size right
Width: two thirds to three quarters of the table's length, hung so the bottom of the frame clears the tallest head at the table by at least a foot.
Seated eye level is roughly 10 inches lower than standing — this is the room where that difference actually matters.
The full method — measuring, hanging height, sightlines — is in the wall-size guide. Every painting on this page can be made to the size your wall actually needs; the price on each card is the published starting price for the smallest canvas.
Questions
Questions about this room
An oil painting is more tolerant than a print: varnished canvas wipes clean with a dry cloth. Keep it out of the direct splash zone of a stove and away from a kettle's steam plume, and it will outlive the table.
Yes, as a pair at the same height with 2–3 inches between frames. Sunflower pairs (the two Van Gogh sunflower studies) are the classic, and we can paint both at matched sizes.
Send us the wall instead of guessing
A photograph of the wall with a tape measure in it is enough. We will show any painting on this page at true scale in your room, free, before you decide.