Description
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Bathers with a Crab
| Year of creation: | c. 1890–1899 |
| Original size: | 65.4 cm x 54.6 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh |
Four nude figures are spread along a rocky shore. The one at the left sits with her back to the viewer, a white cloth over her legs; the central figure leans on the rock and looks down; the one at the right bends towards a small red crab on the stone, and at the lower right a fourth reclines on red drapery. Blue sea with a low coastline opens behind them, and a slender tree grows at the upper right.
The scene was painted around 1890 to 1899. Renoir tells no mythological story here: the crab is only a small detail that ties together the gaze of three figures and gives the scene a moment of incident. The bodies are painted softly, in pink and cream flesh tones, while rock and grass are laid in with quick short strokes — a contrast that brings the figures forward without any hard contour line.
The original measures 65.4 cm x 54.6 cm and is oil on canvas. It is held by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh under inventory number 65.30.2.
Our version is a hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas. Every canvas is painted individually to order, so no two are exactly alike. It is available in eight sizes, from 60 x 50 cm to 130 x 110 cm. It is a painting in oils, not a print.
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