Pierre-Auguste Renoir – The Pont des Arts, Paris

The Pont des Arts – a view running wide along the Seine

The Pont des Arts, Paris is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1867–1868. The original measures 60.9 x 100.3 cm, is catalogued as F.1968.13.P and hangs in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena. Our canvas wall art The Pont des Arts is painted by hand in oil on canvas, in eight sizes from 90 x 55 to 175 x 110 cm.

This is an early work: Renoir painted it at twenty-six, before the word Impressionism existed. That is part of its interest – the city is still built solidly and legibly, the architecture is exact, yet the light and the long shadows already lead the scene more than the drawing does. Renoir would return to the river again and again, most famously in the terrace of the Luncheon of the Boating Party.

Thin iron arches above the water

The view runs wide along the Seine. At the left the Pont des Arts crosses the water on its slender iron arches, with a further bridge and the pale riverside facades beyond. At the right the dark green dome of the Institut de France rises above the trees and roofs. Along the sunlit quay in the foreground small figures walk in twos and threes – women in wide skirts, men in dark coats, a dog – each casting a long shadow across the pale stone. Barges and a landing stage lie along the left bank.

Why hand-painted, not a print

Our version is not a print. The sky is laid in with broad, soft passes, while the figures on the quay are single tiny brushstrokes – a few marks each and nothing more. A hand-painted painting keeps that difference in the way the paint sits, which printed paper cannot imitate.

In the room

The shape is markedly elongated, so the subject repays hanging above a sofa, a bed or a chest of drawers, where the wall is wider than it is tall and an ordinary painting would leave the sides empty. A smaller wall carries 110 x 70 cm, a more spacious one 150 x 90 cm; above really long furniture 175 x 110 cm works, with 160 x 100 cm as the step before it. Under 90 x 55 cm the bridges behind merge into a single line and the view loses its depth.

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 Pont des Arts, Paris 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: the Pont des Arts over the Seine, looking along the river, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Technique: hand-painted oil painting on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame
• Sizes: 8 sizes, from 90 x 55 cm to 175 x 110 cm, another size on request
• Detail worth knowing: a second bridge shows behind the first – it is that second span that gives the scene the depth you cannot see from close to

See also:

• Woman with a Parasol in a Garden
• Snow-covered Landscape
• Luncheon of the Boating Party