[1] The painting depicts a typical Sunday afternoon at the original Moulin de la Galette in the district of Montmartre in Paris.

In the late 19th century, working-class Parisians would dress up and spend time there dancing, drinking, and eating galettes into the evening.

[2]: 121–3  Like other works of Renoir's early maturity, Bal du moulin de la Galette is a typically Impressionist snapshot of real life.

On May 17, 1990, his widow sold the painting for US$78 million at Sotheby's in New York City to Ryoei Saito (Saitō Ryōei), the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company, Japan.

However, when Saito and his companies ran into severe financial difficulties, bankers who held the painting as collateral for loans arranged a confidential sale through Sotheby's to an undisclosed buyer.

Despite Renoir's habit of distributing a sought after fashionable hat of the time amongst his models (the straw bonnet with a wide red ribbon top right is an example of this hat, called a timbale), he was unable to persuade his favourite sixteen-year-old model Jeanne Samary, who appears in La balançoire, to pose as principal for the painting (in fact she was conducting an affair with a local boy at the time).

Apparently, the exuberant Margot found Solares too reserved and was endeavouring to loosen him up by dancing polkas with him, and teaching him dubious songs in the local slang.