by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 2, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
A woman raises a hand as if to answer a splash. Beside her, another holds a length of cloth; at the water's edge, a third leans forward. The action seems momentary, yet the bodies have the poise of sculpture. Pierre-Auguste Renoir worked on this painting from 1884 to 1887, preparing it through many drawings. The Philadelphia Museum of Art calls it The Great Bathers. This page uses the familiar alternate title The Large Bathers for the same canvas, accession 1963-116-13. Philadelphia Museum of Art object record. [1]
That naming matters. Renoir painted other groups of bathers, including a late canvas now at the Musée d'Orsay. This is the Philadelphia work, about 117.8 × 170.8 cm, where three large figures fill a riverbank and two smaller women appear farther back in the water. It records his attempt to join the light and landscape of modern painting with the more deliberate drawing he admired in earlier European art. Philadelphia Museum of Art [1]; Art Institute of Chicago scholarly catalogue. [2]
At a glance
- ArtistPierre-Auguste Renoir
- Holder titleThe Great Bathers; also called The Large Bathers
- Date1884–1887
- MediumOil on canvas
- Dimensions117.8 × 170.8 cm
- CollectionPhiladelphia Museum of Art, 1963-116-13
This work in Renoir’s career
La Grenouillère
1869La Loge
1874The Umbrellas
c. 1881–86The Great Bathers
1884–87The Bathers
1918–19Contents
- Annotated details of the painting
- A splash held still
- Five bathers across two distances
- Why did this take three years?
- An experiment in line and light
- Shown and argued over in 1887
- A later return to the bather subject
- Looking again
Annotated Details from The Large Bathers
A passing splash, carefully staged across three foreground bathers and two smaller figures in the Philadelphia canvas.
Details from THE LARGE BATHERS
These seven details belong to Philadelphia Museum of Art 1963-116-13, titled The Great Bathers by its holder.
Seated bather
The left bather turns toward the water and lifts one hand against a possible splash.
Central bather
The central woman looks toward the others while gathering a cloth.
Figure at the water
The woman at right leans forward at the water’s edge.
Hands and cloth
Hands and fabric connect the central figure with the seated bather.
Crossing legs
Long overlapping limbs link the foreground figures to the water.
Distant bathers
Two much smaller figures extend the scene into the river beyond.
Trees and water
Looser foliage and light contrast with the more solidly modeled bodies.
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A splash held still
The seated woman at left turns towards the figure in the water. Her open hand could shield her face; the woman at right bends toward the water, as though she might send it towards her. The central bather watches while gathering a cloth around her body. These small exchanges give the scene its pulse. They also lead the eye in a loop: from the left woman's hand across the central woman's arms, down the bank, and back through the right woman's bent body. The museum describes the moment as a playful threat of a splash, while emphasizing the picture's monumental quality. Philadelphia Museum of Art. [1]
The two distant figures make the setting read as a shared place rather than a closed group portrait. Water carries the eye across the right side of the canvas; trees and sky spread over the figures. Yet the three nearer women are set apart from this flickering landscape by stable contours and carefully modeled limbs. The contrast is especially clear where the left woman's back meets the white cloth, and where the central woman's legs cross the dark water. Renoir holds a lively exchange inside a carefully balanced design. Art Institute of Chicago scholarly catalogue. [2]
The figures do not have established mythological identities. The setting recalls a bathing place, but the arrangement also invites comparison with older paintings of nymphs and goddesses. The Städel's research points to François Boucher's Diana Bathing as one useful compositional comparison. That helps explain the deliberately classical air without turning these five women into named characters from a myth. Städel Renoir research. [3]
Five bathers across two distances
The three foreground women form a near-continuous band. The left figure is seated in profile, the centre one sits higher and holds the cloth, and the right figure bends at the waterline. Their arms make alternating directions: one hand rises, another gathers fabric, and two extend towards the water. That sequence gives the viewer a way through a densely populated foreground without reducing the picture to a single frozen pose.
The two smaller figures beyond them are easy to overlook. They do not repeat the foreground action at the same scale; their presence widens the bathing place and prevents the near group from reading as three isolated studio studies. Water and trees stretch behind them, while the foreground bodies occupy much of the lower canvas. The difference in scale makes the landscape feel deep even though the near figures have the weight of a shallow sculptural group.
The white cloth works as a bridge. It catches light near the left bather, runs through the central woman's hands, and offsets warm skin against darker plants and water. The landscape has broken, varied touches; the near bodies have firmer edges. Moving between cloth, body and foliage makes the contrast in handling visible without pretending that Renoir used one technique for every square inch of the scene.
Why did this take three years?
Renoir was testing a way to make large figures feel firm while keeping the light and colour of his earlier work. The Philadelphia Museum reports that he laboured over the picture for roughly three years, making studies of individual figures and at least two large drawings of the whole group. The dry, carefully applied paint contributes to the solid effect. His preparation was extensive for a subject that pretends to catch a passing instant. Philadelphia Museum of Art. [1]
The counts of studies refer to different things. Orsay curator Paul Perrin estimates roughly fifteen to twenty large drawings made around the Great Bathers project, while Philadelphia specifies at least two full-scale, multi-figure drawings among the preparations. The first is a curator's broad estimate; the second identifies a particular kind of surviving study. They should not be added together or treated as a complete inventory of every sheet Renoir made. Perrin describes the sustained drawing as a new discipline for an artist who had made relatively few separate studies for his earlier Impressionist pictures. The oil painting's apparently fluid exchange between the women was thus pursued through repeated experiments with line, contour and the placement of bodies. Musée d'Orsay interview with Paul Perrin [4]; Philadelphia Museum of Art. [1]
The drawings show change, not merely rehearsal. A large study at the Morgan Library & Museum places the central woman in a different relation to the surrounding figures; it records stages before the final solution. Its catalogue dates the original study around 1886–87 and notes a later intervention in 1908. That later work on the sheet should not be mistaken for a revision made to the finished Philadelphia canvas in 1908. Morgan Library & Museum drawing record. [5]
An Art Institute of Chicago drawing, Splashing Figure, studies the woman at the far right. Red, white and black chalk shape her back and arms. Technical examination found changes to the placement of her hands and head, as well as a faint erased foot from another figure. This is evidence of revision on that drawing. The Art Institute's technical report also observes that its cupped hands may connect more closely to an earlier multi-figure arrangement than to the Philadelphia painting, where the hands are flatter. The sheet belongs to the history of Renoir's search; it is not a transparent X-ray of the final picture. Art Institute of Chicago, Splashing Figure, 1949.514. [2]
 Pierre-Auguste Renoir.jpg)
The white chalk surrounding the model is particularly revealing. According to the Art Institute's conservation account, Renoir first laid out a general shape in black, added a broad white layer, then worked red and black over it. He blended or rubbed passages to make light and volume. The glowing edge is therefore built from materials and revision, not merely an outline copied from the oil painting. Its paper grain and the painting's canvas texture both remain visible, even as the media differ. Art Institute technical report. [2]
Under ultraviolet and infrared examination, conservators found a faint foot at the left of the sheet and earlier positions for the hands, head and arms. The foot suggests the study once belonged to a wider arrangement, but the report leaves open who erased it or cut the sheet. That uncertainty is worth keeping: technical evidence can reveal a changed drawing without supplying a complete sequence of decisions. The final Philadelphia bather retains the turned back and reaching posture, while her flatter hands change the proposed action. Art Institute technical report. [2]
Those alternatives make the finished composition more interesting. The bather on the right can seem ready to splash without a frozen, theatrical pair of cupped hands. The central woman can hold a cloth and return the viewer's attention to the group. Every gesture answers another across the canvas. The appearance of ease was built out of repeated decisions.
An experiment in line and light
Look at the near figures' edges against the grass and water. Their bodies have a continuous shape; the trees, river and sky break into looser touches. The comparison is clearest at the right woman's shoulder, where a pale contour rises from the darker water. Renoir did not simply abandon his interest in luminous colour. He gave drawing more command over the figures while letting the setting shimmer around them. The museum links this sculptural handling to French painting of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Philadelphia Museum of Art. [1]
The Art Institute's discussion calls the project a significant shift from Renoir's Impressionist practice. It also offers a useful caution: the work developed through several arrangements, and a study can preserve a solution that the painter rejected. Instead of treating the picture as a sudden conversion to one new style, its surviving drawings show an artist working through a problem of scale, form and movement. Art Institute of Chicago scholarly catalogue. [2]
The precise relation between this painting and older art is a matter of comparison, rather than a claim that Renoir copied one source. Boucher's bathers provide one example of a coordinated group in nature. What gives Renoir's canvas its particular tension is the meeting of such an ordered design with the quick action of water, light and a teasing gesture. Städel Renoir research. [3]
Another documented point of reference is François Girardon's Bath of the Nymphs at Versailles. The Musée d'Orsay identifies the seventeenth-century relief as an inspiration for Renoir's group, and the Louvre's record for a related three-bather drawing makes the same connection. The Versailles sculpture catalogue identifies Girardon's work as a broad lead relief made in 1669–71, still set into a garden fountain. Its extended line of bathing figures offered a model for organising bodies across a horizontal field, although the Orsay and Louvre accounts do not establish that Renoir copied any one pose exactly. The relief's alternate title invokes Diana; Renoir's Philadelphia painting does not name a goddess. Treating Girardon as a compositional source preserves that difference between a named mythological scene and Renoir's less specified group by the water. Musée d'Orsay, Renoir dessinateur [6]; Versailles sculpture catalogue [7]; Louvre drawing record. [8]
The Städel makes that comparison more precise. In François Boucher's Diana Leaving the Bath, painted in 1742 and now at the Louvre, a seated nude crosses her legs while another figure attends her; overlapping limbs make the group difficult to separate at a glance. The Städel points to the crossed legs and intertwined figures in Renoir's Philadelphia canvas as related compositional choices. The Louvre's record confirms the Boucher painting's artist, date and subject, while the comparison of its forms is the Städel's interpretation. Neither record establishes that Renoir transferred a traced figure from one canvas to the other. Städel, Renoir: Rococo Revival [3]; Louvre, Diane sortant du bain, INV 2712. [9]
The comparison also shows what Renoir did not carry over. Boucher's title names Diana, and the Louvre's historical catalogue records a goddess returning from the bath with a companion. Renoir's title names bathers, with no securely identified mythological character and no equivalent story to decode. That openness makes the painting's appeal depend heavily on the women's bodies, gestures and setting. The Städel places Renoir's female nudes within a longer tradition of sensual looking and notes that later feminist criticism has questioned how such paintings position women for the viewer. A close reading can attend to the difficult construction of the picture while still asking who is given agency in the scene and whose pleasure its viewpoint serves. Louvre object record [9]; Städel Renoir research. [3]
Shown and argued over in 1887
Renoir displayed the completed painting as a centrepiece of Georges Petit's International Exhibition in Paris from 8 May to 8 June 1887. The venue matters: it was not a Salon submission. Morgan Library & Museum, 1887 exhibition context. [10] Responses were mixed. In an 1887 letter cited by the Art Institute, Camille Pissarro complained that concentrating on line had separated the figures from one another and weakened the whole. The Philadelphia Museum also records criticism of Renoir's new style. These are evidence of a difficult reception, not proof that every viewer rejected it. Morgan exhibition labels [11]; Art Institute of Chicago scholarly catalogue [2]; Philadelphia Museum of Art. [1]
The disagreement helps explain the painting's importance. A viewer who valued a unified, vibrating surface might find the modeled figures too separate. Another could see the same sharpness as a way to give the figures weight and clarity. Renoir made the tension visible rather than smoothing it away. The picture remains a record of an experiment whose ambition is larger than the playful event it depicts.
Berthe Morisot provides a different contemporary perspective from Pissarro's criticism. The Art Institute cites her admiration, in 1886, for a series of figure studies in Renoir's studio. Her observation counters the idea that an Impressionist picture necessarily arose from quick, unplanned execution. It does not prove she approved every part of the finished canvas shown the following year. Taken together, the two artists' responses show how preparation itself could be admired while the final relation between figures and setting remained disputed. Art Institute scholarly catalogue. [2]
A later return to the bather subject
The Musée d'Orsay owns a distinct The Bathers painted in 1918–19. It too contains five women, but two reclining figures dominate the foreground while three smaller bathers gather by a stream. Its softer connections between bodies and landscape make a useful comparison with the more firmly bounded Philadelphia group. The two paintings are separated by more than thirty years; one is not a later state of the other. Musée d'Orsay, Les Baigneuses, RF 2795 [12]; Philadelphia Museum of Art. [1]
 Pierre-Auguste Renoir.jpg)
Comparing the two also clarifies the playful gesture in Philadelphia. Its near figures exchange positions and implied actions across the bank, with one hand raised towards an anticipated splash. In the Orsay work, the near bodies rest and the stream activity recedes. Renoir did not settle on one permanent answer to the bather theme. He could make the same broad subject carry a tightly staged moment in the 1880s and a slower, more enveloping arrangement late in life.
Looking again
Begin at the left woman's hand, where the possible splash enters the story. Follow the central woman's cloth, then the long sweep of her leg toward the water. Finally look at the figure at right and the two smaller bathers beyond. The small gestures make the group lively; the carefully drawn bodies make it still enough to study. Both experiences belong to the same painting.
Questions about The Large Bathers
Yes. This page discusses the Philadelphia Museum of Art painting 1963-116-13, which the museum titles The Great Bathers. The Large Bathers is an alternate English title in circulation. Check the holder and accession, since Renoir and other artists made different paintings of bathers.
The Philadelphia Museum dates it 1884–1887. The project involved numerous preparatory studies and was exhibited in 1887.
The museum sources do not establish five named sitters or mythological characters for this painting. The composition can be read through its figures and gestures without inventing identities.
It belongs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Consult the museum's current object page for display information.
Discussion
Look closely at The Large Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) and use the questions below to compare what you see with the documented history.
Reader Insights
Which figure or gesture anchors the Philadelphia composition?
Renoir made many studies; individual sheets need exact relation to the final canvas.
Where does the figure-landscape contrast feel resolved or tense?
Join the Conversation
Share a close observation or a source-backed question about The Large Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses). The prompts above are starting points for discussion.
References
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Great Bathers, 1963-116-13, object description and collection data View source.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Splashing Figure, 1949.514, scholarly and technical discussion of a related drawing View source.
- Städel Renoir research, comparison with earlier French painting View source.
- Musée d'Orsay, Paul Perrin interview View source.
- Morgan Library & Museum, Morgan Library & Museum, bather study 2018.71 View source.
- Musée d'Orsay, Musée d'Orsay, Renoir dessinateur View source.
- Versailles sculpture catalogue, Versailles sculpture catalogue, François Girardon, Le Bain des nymphes , inv. 1850.9399 View source.
- Versailles sculpture catalogue, Louvre, Trois baigneuses au bord de l'eau , RF 29660 recto View source.
- Louvre, François Boucher, Diane sortant du bain, INV 2712, 1742 object and exhibition record View source.
- Morgan Library & Museum, 1887 exhibition context View source.
- Morgan Library & Museum, 2025 exhibition labels View source.
- Musée d'Orsay, Les Baigneuses, RF 2795, distinct late canvas used for comparison View source.
- Whole-work reproduction: Commons Google Art Project file, Public Domain Mark faithful reproduction View source.
