Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Bather with a Griffon Dog

Bather with a Griffon – Salon drawing of the figure and freely painted foliage on one canvas

Bather with a Griffon Dog is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1870. The original measures 115.0 cm x 183.5 cm, is recorded under inventory number MASP.00095 and is held by the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) in Brazil. Our canvas wall art Bather with a Griffon Dog is painted by hand in oils, in eight upright sizes from 58 x 90 to 130 x 200 cm.

The white chemise and the little dog

The nude figure stands at the centre of the canvas on a grassy bank, her body turned towards the viewer and her eyes lowered. In her right hand she holds a white chemise with a red ribbon, falling across a heap of linen. At the lower left a small black-and-tan griffon lies on striped cloth; behind her to the right a clothed woman rests in the grass. To the left, between willow branches, the view opens onto water and low hills.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. The canvas dates from 1870 and carries two quite different degrees of finish: the figure is built with firm, almost academic drawing of the kind the Salon then demanded, while the foliage and fabrics around her are painted far more freely. A painting made by hand can follow both – the exact edge of the body and the quick stroke behind it – where print brings the two applications onto the same plane.

In the room

The format is upright and tall, so the canvas belongs on a narrow wall where height is no obstacle: between windows, beside a door, on a staircase or in an entrance hall. An upright subject also tolerates less distance than a horizontal one, because the eye reads it from top to bottom rather than across. The pale flesh and the white chemise ask for a quiet wall; against patterned wallpaper the outline of the figure is lost. For an ordinary room we recommend 80 x 130 cm, for a tall wall 110 x 170 cm, and in a narrower hallway 70 x 110 cm.

What you receive

We paint the canvas to order, by hand and for you alone, so every copy is made on its own; the canvas is usually painted and dried within three to four weeks. If you prefer, we will paint it in a size that is not on the list. Before despatch we send you a photograph of the finished canvas for your approval, and only then does the painting go out. Bather with a Griffon Dog arrives stretched on a wooden frame and ready to hang, wrapped in protective film and in rigid packaging, with no further stretching or finishing needed.

• Subject: standing nude with a white chemise and a small dog on striped cloth, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 58 x 90 cm to 130 x 200 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: the figure is drawn firmly and almost academically, in the way the Salon then required

See also:

• A Nymph by a Stream
• The Large Bathers
• The Bathers