Description
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Woman at the Piano
| Year of creation: | 1875–1876 |
| Original size: | 93.0 cm x 74.0 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Art Institute of Chicago |
Woman at the Piano is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1875–1876. The original measures 93.0 x 74.0 cm, is catalogued as 1937.1025 and hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. Our oil painting on canvas Woman at the Piano is worked by hand in oil on canvas, in eight sizes from 65 x 80 to 140 x 170 cm.
A young fair-haired woman sits at an upright piano, seen from her left. She wears a long white dress with a dark ribbon at the throat and a dark sash falling from the waist, and her hands rest on the keys. Open sheet music stands on the rack, flanked by two lit candles in brass holders. The case of the instrument is a deep, warm brown-black. At the left, behind her, a large green plant rises from a dark vase, and the room beyond is a soft blue-green worked in loose strokes.
The picture is not a portrait of a named person – the museum names none – but a moment of concentration. All the light gathers on the white dress and the music, and everything else withdraws into the darkness of the case and the soft green of the room.
Our version is not a print. The white dress is built from many thin, wet layers of blue, grey and rose worked into one another, while the dark case is laid broad and almost even. A hand-painted painting keeps that difference in the way the paint sits, which printed paper cannot imitate.
The quiet blue-and-white subject settles well in a living room, a bedroom or a music room. For a smaller wall 80 x 100 cm is enough; above a larger piece of furniture we recommend 100 x 130 cm. We paint to order, in a different size on request. Before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished canvas for your approval. Every oil painting on canvas Woman at the Piano arrives ready to hang, with the canvas stretched on a wooden frame.
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