Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Near the Lake

Near the Lake – the rehearsal for the scene that made Renoir famous

Near the Lake is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1879 and 1880. The original measures 56.3 cm x 47.5 cm and is held by the Art Institute of Chicago. Our oil painting Near the Lake is painted by hand in oils on canvas, in eight landscape sizes from 40 x 35 to 150 x 130 cm.

A couple by the water, among greenery

The scene is private and small: a couple by the water, surrounded by greenery, with no city behind them. Renoir used his own friends as models while they enjoyed nature together outside the hustle and bustle of the city – which is why the whole thing reads as an afternoon among acquaintances rather than a staged scene.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. The greenery and the water here are built from separate loads of colour that, set side by side, read as leaves and as reflection rather than as a flat field. A hand-painted canvas keeps those separate loads and the direction of the brush; printed paper reduces them to an even screen and the greenery becomes one single green surface.

In the room

The format is landscape and the scene is quiet, so the work does not ask for a main wall but for a place where it is seen from close to: above a chest of drawers, beside a reading corner, in a dining room, or on a short hallway wall. The greenery and the water sit well with warm wood and a white, cream or pale green wall. Because the ladder of sizes runs so far down, this is one of the few subjects on this shelf that works very small as well: 50 x 40 cm is enough beside a desk, 80 x 70 cm above a chest of drawers, and 120 x 100 cm carries a whole living-room wall.

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. Near the Lake 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 couple by the water among greenery, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 40 x 35 cm to 150 x 130 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: the canvas is a forerunner of Luncheon of the Boating Party, Renoir’s best-known picture, and his own friends sat for it

See also:

• Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise
• Dance at the Moulin de la Galette
• Two Sisters (On the Terrace)