Description
Long-haired Bather – a canvas held upright by a single vertical
| Year of creation: | 1895–1896 |
| Original size: | 65.0 cm x 82.0 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris |
Long-haired Bather is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1895 and 1896. The original measures 65.0 cm x 82.0 cm, is recorded under inventory number RF 1963-23 and is at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, in the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection. Our art reproduction Long-haired Bather is painted by hand in oils on canvas, in eight upright sizes from 65 x 80 to 130 x 170 cm.
The hair that leads the eye down the full height
The nude stands in shallow water, her body slightly turned and her head in profile. Long red-gold hair falls over her shoulder to her hips, and she holds a white cloth in front of her with both hands. A straw hat with pink fabric lies at the lower right, and behind her yellow-green foliage opens out, painted almost without detail.
Why hand-painted, not a print
Our version is not a print. The body is built from soft transitions between warm orange, pink and white, without a hard contour line; the setting is only a curtain of colour that places the figure in light. The hair carries the design: it leads the eye from the head downwards across the full height of the canvas. A hand-made version keeps the direction and the length of those strokes, which print grinds down into uniform dots.
In the room
Because the whole composition rests on the vertical of the hair, the work needs height rather than width: a narrow wall between two windows, the space beside a tall piece of furniture, a landing where the eye travels upwards. A horizontal wall above a sofa takes away exactly that – the hair stops before it reaches the bottom. The yellow-green foliage behind her is painted without detail and competes with nothing, so the canvas will take a more colourful room as well, as long as the wall behind it stays quiet. For an ordinary room we recommend 100 x 120 cm, for a taller wall 130 x 160 cm, and for a narrow, high strip of wall 130 x 170 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. Long-haired Bather 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 in shallow water with a white cloth and a straw hat at her feet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
- Sizes: 8 sizes, from 65 x 80 cm to 130 x 170 cm, another size on request
- Detail worth knowing: the painting belongs to the collection of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume, and the background is painted almost without detail, like a curtain of colour
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