Henri Rousseau Framed Art Print, The Banks of the Bièvre near Bicêtre
Details
This painting is currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The painter attached the subject of his painting of the handwritten note to its stretcher and consigned it to a dealer called Ambroise Vollard. It was a painting of a scene around Bicetre. This working-class community lived on the southern edge of the Paris city around the Bievre River. The river is now buried underground as it crosses through a section of the city. However, it was a waterway during those days, heavily polluted but still offered picturesque views in the areas around it.
In the painting, Henri shows long, deciduous trees in the foreground and a pathway that criss-crosses the trees. On the right is a wooden fence that crosses the river, sealing off a piece of land that is heavily forested with all-weather trees. In the background are buildings, partly obscured by trees such that only the rooftops and windows are seen. Viewers can see more people walking among trees on the left of the image. Besides, Henri shows an aqua blue sky with trees swaying to the cool breeze.
Size Options
Available as an unframed fine art print or choose from a variety of frames and mounts.
All frames are made from responsibly sourced wood and are made in our Nottinghamshire workshop.
SIZING
Print size quoted is the printed area, with mounts varying from 1 inch wide for small prints and 2-3 inches wide for larger prints.
For example, the 8x10 inch print with white mount and white frame will measure approximately 10x14 inches overall and the 24x30 inch print with white mount and white frame will measure approximately 32x38 inches overall.
Frames are approximately one inch wide and one inch deep.
All prints are made using archival art stocks and UV pigment inks to give up to 200 years life.
Frames and Mounts
FRAMES
All of our frames are custom made to order in our Nottinghamshire workshop. The wood for our frames is responsibly sourced from managed forests in the UK and EU.
All of our frames are fitted with a backing board with integral hanging points.
MOUNTS
Our mounts are cut from sustainable sourced acid free board.
GLAZING
Frames up to 16x20 inches are fitted with high clarity glass and larger frames are fitted with high quality acrylic which has the same visual clarity as our glass.
The Artist
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (1844-1910) was a French post-impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier, a humorous description of his occupation as a toll and tax collector.
Rousseau claimed he had "no teacher other than nature" although he admitted he had received "some advice" from two established Academic painters, Félix Auguste Clément and Jean-Léon Gérôme. Essentially, he was self-taught and is considered to be a naïve or primitive painter.
His best-known paintings depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle. Stories spread by admirers that his army service included the French expeditionary force to Mexico are unfounded. His inspiration came from illustrations in children's books and the botanical gardens in Paris, as well as tableaux of taxidermy wild animals. During his term of service, he had also met soldiers who had survived the French expedition to Mexico, and he listened to their stories of the subtropical country they had encountered. To the critic Arsène Alexandre, he described his frequent visits to the Jardin des Plantes: "When I go into the glass houses and I see the strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream."
Along with his exotic scenes there was a concurrent output of smaller topographical images of the city and its suburbs.
He claimed to have invented a new genre of portrait landscape, which he achieved by starting a painting with a specific view, such as a favourite part of the city, and then depicting a person in the foreground.
Finest Quality Wall Art
What makes our prints and canvas panels so special
1Latest Giclee printing technology
We have invested in the latest wide format print technology to produce museum quality giclee prints utilising the highest quality pigment inks to give outstanding colour reproduction.
2Museum quality archival fine art papers
We print on the finest quality fine art papers with textured, smooth and lustre finishes for prints which last a lifetime. From aceo to 40x80 inch large format, every print has our lifetime quality guarantee.
3Solid wood frames, cotton canvas
All of the wood for our canvas panels and frames is responsibly sourced from managed forests. Our cotton canvas is completely seedless for the highest quality reproduction possible.
