Pierre-Auguste Renoir – La Parisienne

La Parisienne – a sky-blue dress instead of black and grey

La Parisienne is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1874. The original measures 108.3 cm x 163.5 cm and is held by the National Museum Cardiff. We paint our version by hand in oils on canvas, in eight portrait sizes, from 40 x 60 to 108 x 164 cm. The largest of them, 108 x 164 cm, matches the measurement of the original, with 90 x 140 cm as the step below.

A type, not one particular person

Renoir painted Madame Henriette Henriot, an actress, but titled the picture La Parisienne because he wanted to show a type of woman of that time in Paris – the new urban woman – and not a particular individual. The dress and the expression are worth noting too: the dress is painted with great precision and in a sky blue that departs sharply from the blacks and greys then considered acceptable. It is that blue which makes the scene read as a statement rather than a commissioned portrait.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. The whole canvas is carried by a single large area of blue, and a large area of even colour is the hardest case a print can face: the screen divides it into regular grain, and what was deep and full of light turns flat. A hand-painted canvas keeps the blue alive because the paint within it is uneven – thinner in one place, denser in another – and that is exactly why the dress keeps its folds and the weight of the cloth.

In the room

The format is upright and the figure is close to life size, so the scene works as an opening in the wall: it belongs in an entrance hall, on a staircase, beside a door, or in a room with a high ceiling where you can step back a few paces. For a smaller wall 70 x 110 or 80 x 120 cm is enough. On a large wall 100 x 150 or 108 x 164 cm works, the latter being the measurement of the original. Below 50 x 75 cm the dress loses its folds and the blue becomes an even area, so we do not suggest smaller sizes for this subject.

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. La Parisienne 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: young woman in a sky-blue dress, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 40 x 60 cm to 108 x 164 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: the title names a type rather than a person – Renoir set out to paint the new urban woman, not the portrait of a particular lady

See also:

• Claude Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil
• Ambroise Vollard Dressed as a Toreador
• Jean Drawing