Description
| Title: | The Wedding Party |
| Other titles: | La Noce (the museum’s title) |
| Painter: | Henri Rousseau |
| Year painted: | 1905 |
| Original size: | 163 cm x 114 cm (height x width); with frame 185 x 135 cm |
| Original technique: | oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | naive art (primitivism) |
| Held at: | Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, France (inv. RF 1960 25) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or a size made to order |
The Wedding Party is a painting by Henri Rousseau, oil on canvas, dated 1905 by the Musée de l’Orangerie, which catalogues it under its French title La Noce. The original is 163 cm high and 114 cm wide and is held in Paris under inventory number RF 1960 25. What you see: a wedding group posed in front of trees, the bride in white at the centre, an old man seated on a stump at the left, an old woman seated at the right, and a large black dog lying in the grass in front.
The Wedding Party
What is on the canvas?
The canvas is upright and much taller than it is wide. The group stands before a screen of trees: dark green, hand-shaped leaves at the upper left, long pale leaves arching along the top, slender white trunks rising on the right, an intense blue sky between the crowns, and a narrow ochre strip of field behind the figures. In the centre the bride faces us squarely in a long white dress and veil, a sprig of white flowers at her breast and a small white sheet of paper in one hand; her train runs off to the right. Behind her stand five figures: at the left two men with moustaches, one dark-haired and one fair, a woman in black at the back, another moustached man, and at the right a fair-haired woman in black. At the lower left an old man with white hair, in a loose dark blue smock and black trousers, sits on a tree stump with a stick in one hand and a rolled paper in the other; at the right an old woman in a white cap and brown shawl sits low beside the bride’s train. In the foreground a big black dog lies on the grass, which is flecked with small red dots. The signature, Henri Julien Rousseau, is at the lower right.
Why does the bride seem to float?
At first sight, the Musée de l’Orangerie writes, this is a wedding photograph: the party in town clothes posing for the photographer. Yet the bride seems to hover. Her veil is laid over the grandmother’s dress and contradicts the depth suggested by the rows of figures rising one above another. The museum does not read this as a mistake: it calls it a cultivated awkwardness, a pentimento, that is, a change the painter made on the canvas, and so a deliberate choice, which makes the bride all in white appear suspended in space. The same text points to the oversized dog in the foreground, which pushes the eye back into the picture, and to the small, stylised trees that frame the group. Another Rousseau group posed out of doors is The Family.
Who owned the painting before the museum?
The museum’s record sets out its history. It lists Serge Férat (Jastrebzoff) in Paris as the first owner. From 1929 the painting was in the collection of Paul Guillaume in Paris, then with Madame Jean Walter, Domenica Walter, until 1959, when it was acquired from her for the Musée du Louvre with the support of the Société des Amis du Louvre. In 1977 it passed to the Musée de l’Orangerie. The record also gives its first showing: the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1905. The full record is on the museum’s page, linked in the table above. Also at the Orangerie is The Child with the Doll.
How large is the original, and what does that mean on a wall?
The original is 163 cm high and 114 cm wide; with its frame the museum gives 185 x 135 cm. Eight sizes are available: 52 x 75, 65 x 90, 70 x 100, 80 x 115, 90 x 130, 120 x 170, 130 x 193 and 150 x 210 cm. The one nearest the original is 120 x 170 cm; the smaller sizes keep the proportion and bring the group down to a size for a hallway or a bedroom, while the largest, 150 x 210 cm, is bigger than the original itself. Custom sizes are ordered through the made-to-order painting page. A single standing figure on a similarly upright canvas is Portrait of a Woman.
How is a hand-painted reproduction made?
We paint your canvas painting by hand in oils after you order it, at the size you choose. From a high-resolution image of the original, the painter lays in the blue sky and the dark and white trees first, then the black clothes, and leaves the faces and the white of the dress until last so that they stay clean. A hand-painted canvas always differs slightly from the next, and that difference is exactly what a print cannot give you. It is stretched on a wooden frame, ready to hang. A much smaller portrait by the same painter is Portrait of the Artist with a Lamp, and the whole collection is in the Henri Rousseau gallery.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the original kept?
At the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, inventory number RF 1960 25, under the title La Noce.
When was it painted?
In 1905, the date the museum gives; that same year it was shown at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris.
Who are the people in the painting?
The museum’s record does not name them. Its text refers to the old woman whose dress the veil falls across as the grandmother.
Is this a print?
No. It is painted by hand in oils, and the layers of paint can be seen and felt.
Is the painting suitable as a gift?
Yes, especially for a wedding or an anniversary: it is a whole family gathered around a bride. If you would rather the recipient chose, there is a gift voucher.
- Subject: a wedding group posed in front of trees, with the bride in white at the centre and a large black dog in front.
- Original: oil on canvas, 163 x 114 cm (height x width), Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, inv. RF 1960 25; 1905.
- Our version: hand-painted oil, eight sizes from 52 x 75 to 150 x 210 cm, or a size made to order.
- Of note: the museum reads the floating bride as a deliberate change by the painter, a pentimento, not as clumsiness.
