Few paintings convey the carefree spirit of a Parisian summer in the late 19th century as well as Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s boaters lunching by the Seine just outside the city.

To the delight of French art fans, Renoir’s 1881 masterpiece was hung this week at the Musée d’Orsay, before the first big retrospective of the impressionist giant since 1985.

Le Déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party), a large canvas of friends bantering and flirting after the Sunday meal at the Maison Fournaise at Chatou, has been lent by the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, which regards the work as its crown jewel.

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The show, titled Renoir and Love: A Joyful Modernity (1865-1885), focuses on the happy spirit of Renoir’s work, which he famously summed up by saying: “I know well that it is difficult to get people to admit that a painting can be a truly great painting while remaining joyful.”

Auguste Renoir, a French painter, in his workshop, circa 1907.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir in about 1907

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The 50 other canvases on display at the exhibition, which opens on March 17 and runs to July 19, include the Dance at Bougival and Bal du moulin de la Galette.

The museum, which is to lend Bal du moulin de la Galette to Washington next year, regards the boaters’ lunch as the ultimate symbol of the belle époque and Renoir’s “joie de vivre”.

Illustration of Bal du moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, depicting a vibrant outdoor dance scene with many people dressed in late 19th-century attire.

Bal du moulin de la Galette

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“Bringing this painting to the Musée d’Orsay was truly a dream of mine,” Paul Perrin, chief curator and head of collections at the museum, said. The work illustrated “a kind of ideal image of society, where all social classes meet and live in harmony, in a joyful way, by the water, in nature”, he added.

The museum describes Renoir, who died in 1919 aged 78, as an exception among his fellow impressionists, with his “discreet and tender vision, devoid of any hint of sentimentality, ribaldry or drama”. His painting “re-enchanted relationships between men and women and, implicitly, examined the question of male desire and female consent”, its catalogue says.

Illustration of a woman in a pink dress and a man in a blue suit dancing, surrounded by other people at tables.

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The retrospective, co-organised with the National Gallery in London and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, “provides a new perspective on paintings that are so well known that it has become difficult to perceive how radical they are”, it added.

The Maison Fournaise tavern, where Renoir painted his lunching friends, including Aline Charigot, his future wife, was restored in the late 1980s to its belle époque glory. The restaurant, listed as a national monument by the local council, Chatou, is now under the chef Hakima El Berrimi, with guidance from Christian Le Squer, chef of the three Michelin-star Le Cinq in Paris.