Custom Renoir Style Couple Portrait, Hand-Painted from Your Photos

A pair sharing one canvas, hand-painted in oil. Send a photograph of each of you, or the single snapshot you love.

Shape of the order

• Best input: one clear daylight photograph per person, taken close.
• Also welcome: a joint photograph with a pose worth keeping, such as linked hands or a laugh.
• Useful in a sentence: who is taller, who leans, who looks at the camera.
• Starting price, two people, smallest canvas, rolled: $262 (30 × 40 cm, rolled canvas).
• Painting time: 2 to 4 weeks.

Joint snapshots taken at arm’s length or across a table give two small faces, which is why separate photographs usually produce the better pair.

Dancers who changed their minds

In 1883 Renoir made three dance pictures for the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel: Dance in the City, Dance in the Country and Dance at Bougival. Suzanne Valadon modelled for the city couple, and Aline Charigot, later his wife, for the woman in the country one. At Bougival a woman in pale pink turns with a man in deep blue. By Renoir’s own account the man’s jacket began white, and X-rays show the woman first wore a different hat.

Matching or contrasting clothes help: a pale dress beside a dark jacket, as at Bougival, makes the two figures read at once from across a room. A pair lets one colour answer another across two bodies. A half-length couple close to the front of the canvas, background softened, brings that out. A date or initials can be worked in quietly, though the picture is often stronger without.

Which version

In the faithful version clothes, colours and place stay as photographed. In the Renoir version both faces stay recognisable while skin warms, shadows cool and the background breaks into small touches of colour. Outdoor photographs, café tables and dancing take it best. The result is painted after his manner and is not an original Renoir.

Canvas and delivery

Two faces need room, so medium and large canvases suit couples. Sizes keep the shape of your main photograph, in the three finishes: rolled, stretched on a wooden frame, or framed. Photographs of the finished canvas reach you before dispatch. Shipping is free worldwide and tracked. Carriers: UPS or DHL.

After dispatch, allow 5 to 7 business days.

Specific to two

Can the picture show us from years ago?

If you have photographs from that time, yes. Copy old prints flat in daylight and use the clearest face of each.

We have never been photographed side by side. Is that a problem?

No. Two single photographs are the preferred input, so a couple who live in different cities, or lost the one joint picture, can still be painted together.

Our dog is part of us. Can it come too?

Yes, as a third figure. The pet portrait page shows how to photograph an animal, and the custom Renoir painting page lists every subject.

What if the pair is not what we hoped?

Corrections can be asked for before dispatch, and a delivered painting can be returned. Return period: 30 days.

You can cancel your order at any time until it ships.

Tell us about the two of you