Description
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – The Large Bathers
| Year of creation: | 1884–1887 |
| Original size: | 117.9 cm x 170.9 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA |
Three nude figures sit and recline on a river bank, propped against a white cloth that gathers into broad folds in the foreground. The central bather faces the viewer and holds a cloth in her hands, the one on the left leans back on her elbow, and the third sits beside her with one arm raised. Behind them to the right two more bathers stand in the water, and beyond that a green, sun-dappled bank opens out.
The painting was made between 1884 and 1887, an unusually long three years for Renoir. After his journey to Italy he moved away from the soft, dissolved Impressionist touch and looked instead for a firm contour and a sculpturally modelled body. This canvas is regarded as the summary of that phase: the skin is smooth and coolly lit, the outlines are crisp, and the background is painted far more loosely than the figures in front of it.
The original measures 117.9 cm x 170.9 cm and is oil on canvas. It is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the United States under inventory number 1963-116-13.
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 not a print but a painting, laid on in oils with a brush.
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