Les Deux Baigneuses (Cancelled impression)

Description

Auguste Renoir’s The Two Bathers is represented here by an impression from a cancelled etching plate. The original design dates to 1895, but the diagonal scratches crossing the figures belong to the plate’s later cancellation. Two seated women remain visible beneath those disruptive lines, making the image an encounter between Renoir’s composition and the marks that altered its subsequent printing.

Etching gives the bodies a surface built through accumulated lines rather than continuous painted color. Their poses and the relationship between them can still be followed, even as the cancellation cuts across that arrangement. The scratches should not be understood as part of the bathing scene or as accidental damage to a normal impression. They record a different condition of the plate, giving this particular printed image a character distinct from uncancelled examples of the same design.

Read our guide to giclée prints, browse more Auguste Renoir prints, or explore The Two Bathers.