Description
Still Life with Peaches – a still life from Renoir’s years of experiment
| Year of Creation: | 1881 |
| Original size: | 64.8 cm x 53.3 cm |
| Paint style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Still Life with Peaches is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1881. The original measures 64.8 cm x 53.3 cm and is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We paint our version by hand in oils on canvas, in eight landscape sizes, from 40 x 30 to 180 x 80 cm. Among them is 65 x 53 cm, the size that comes closest to the original, and 80 x 65 cm for a larger wall.
What is recorded about this painting, and what is not
About the canvas itself – how the peaches are arranged, what stands around them, and what the surface of the painting looks like – our record holds no description, and we do not invent one here. Something else is recorded: what the still life was for. In the early 1880s Renoir gave himself over to artistic exploration and made his living painting portraits and still lifes, and it was in still life that he found room to experiment. He said later that he was very relaxed at these pictures, because he was free to try different techniques without having to worry about how the painting would finally look.
Why hand-painted, not a print
Our version is not a print. A still life is a small scene, and it is almost always seen from close to – and close to is exactly where a printed reproduction gives itself away: the screen breaks into regular dots, and the passage between the lit and the shaded side of the fruit stiffens into steps. A hand-painted canvas keeps the brushstroke as the trace of a hand, visible and uneven, and denser where the painter went back into the colour. The surface stays alive at half a metre, which is the distance from which a picture of this format is usually looked at.
In the room
The subject is quiet and small by nature, so it takes closeness well: a dining room above the table, a kitchen, a shelf in the living room, or a hallway you pass within arm’s reach. For a position like that we suggest 60 x 50 or 65 x 53 cm, the latter being the size closest to the original. On a larger clear wall 80 x 65 cm works. The 180 x 80 cm size is markedly elongated and does not follow the proportions of the original; we suggest it only where the wall is wide and low, above a long sideboard for instance.
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. Still Life with Peaches 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: still life with peaches, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
- Sizes: 8 sizes, from 40 x 30 cm to 180 x 80 cm, another size on request
- Detail worth knowing: Renoir said he was at his most relaxed painting still lifes, because he could experiment without worrying how the picture would end up
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