Description
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – The Bathers
| Year of creation: | 1918–1919 |
| Original size: | 110.0 cm x 160.0 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Musée d’Orsay, Paris |
Two large reclining figures fill almost the whole width of the canvas. The nearer one lies on a white cloth with an arm behind her head; the further one props herself on an elbow and looks out towards the viewer. A straw hat trimmed with flowers lies at the left edge, and away to the right two smaller figures bathe among the grass and water. Meadow, foliage and sky are painted in warm reds, oranges and greens.
The canvas was made in 1918 and 1919, the last two years of Renoir’s life — he died in 1919 at Cagnes-sur-Mer. The paint is thin and translucent, the contours dissolve into the surroundings, and the bodies are built from warm, almost glowing tones. The scene tells no story: it is bodies at rest in light, the subject that occupied Renoir all his life.
The original measures 110.0 cm x 160.0 cm and is oil on canvas. It is held by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris under inventory number RF 2795.
Our version is a hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas. Every canvas is painted individually to order, so no two are exactly alike. It is available in eight sizes, from 80 x 55 cm to 160 x 110 cm. It is a painting in oils, not a print.
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