Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Dance at the Moulin de la Galette

Dance at the Moulin de la Galette – a Sunday afternoon on Montmartre

Dance at the Moulin de la Galette is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1876. The original measures 175 cm x 131 cm and is held by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Our oil painting Dance at the Moulin de la Galette is painted by hand in oils on canvas, in eight landscape sizes from 80 x 60 to 200 x 150 cm, among them the size of the original, 175 x 131 cm.

Shafts of sun and a crowd of acquaintances

The scene is out of doors and crowded: a large number of people at a popular dance in the garden on the hill of the Butte Montmartre. The shafts of sunlight falling through the trees onto faces and clothes are a mark of the Impressionists, and with this canvas Renoir was especially glad of the chance to paint people, and above all women, who make up the main part of the scene. The people shown are mostly his own friends and acquaintances.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. This scene rests on scattered light: the patches of sun lie across faces and fabrics rather than beside them, and that is exactly where print fails – the screen sets them into flat blotches with a hard edge. A hand-painted canvas leaves the passage between the lit and the shaded part soft, as it is, and faces in the second row stay faces.

In the room

The scene is wide, landscape and full of people, so it calls for distance and free wall: the main wall of a living room, a dining room above a long table, or a space where you can step back a few paces. At a small size the crowd closes into a coloured press and individual figures are lost, so we do not recommend this subject below 100 x 75 cm. For an ordinary living room we recommend 130 x 100 cm, and for a large wall 175 x 131 cm, which is also the size of the original.

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. Dance at the Moulin de la Galette 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: a dance in a garden under trees, with sunlight in patches across the crowd, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 80 x 60 cm to 200 x 150 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: the people on the canvas are not hired models but mostly Renoir’s own friends and acquaintances from Montmartre

See also:

• Parisiennes in Algerian Costume
• Two Sisters (On the Terrace)
• Near the Lake