Pierre-Auguste Renoir – The Bathers

The Bathers – a canvas from the last two years, painted thin enough to see through

The Bathers is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1918 and 1919. The original measures 110.0 cm x 160.0 cm, is recorded under inventory number RF 2795 and is held by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Our oil painting on canvas The Bathers is worked by hand, in eight sizes from 80 x 55 to 160 x 110 cm.

Two figures across the full width

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.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. This is a canvas from the last two years of Renoir’s life – he died in 1919 at Cagnes-sur-Mer – and the paint is thin and translucent, so the layer underneath shows through the one above it all the way across. That transparency is exactly what printed paper cannot give: an ink layer is opaque and even, while an oil painting on canvas The Bathers laid by hand stays open and deep.

In the room

The colours are warm and the scene is quiet, so the canvas can carry the main wall of a living room or bedroom and needs no strong setting to make itself felt. It shows best where soft daylight reaches it: the translucent layers then read as layers rather than as an even surface. For an average wall we recommend 110 x 75 cm, for a longer wall above a sofa 150 x 100 cm, and in a smaller room 90 x 60 cm, which still keeps both figures at natural scale.

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. The Bathers 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: two reclining figures on a white cloth in the grass, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 80 x 55 cm to 160 x 110 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: one of the last canvases Renoir painted at Cagnes-sur-Mer

See also:

• The Large Bathers
• Reclining Nude
• Dance at the Moulin de la Galette