Improvisation

Childe Hassam (American, 1859–1935)

Date: 1899
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 30 × 34 in (76.3 × 86.2 cm)
Museum: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, accession 1929.6.55. See the museum’s record
Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly

Public domain image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Smithsonian Open Access, CC0).

Palette

Closest wall colors:

Fits these rooms

Hang it

Pick the furniture and a print size to see it to scale on your wall.

Where Print size

Print: 21¼ × 24 in, the whole painting on 24 × 24 in paper
Center: 67¾ in (172 cm) from the floor
Above the headboard: 8 in (20 cm) from the headboard to the frame
Ideal width: 40 to 45 in over a 60 in headboard
Why this height: Centered at eye level, this frame would not sit 6 to 10 in above the headboard, so the 8 in gap sets the height.

21¼ × 24 in landscape print (54 × 61 cm), centered 67¾ in from the floor, 8 in above the headboard. Drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall.

Try it on your wall color

Default greige

Print it

No standard paper matches this painting’s proportions closely, so print it whole with a white border, or trim the edges to fill the paper.

Paper	Filling the paper	Printed whole	Frame	Frame with a 2 in mat	Frame with a 3 in mat	Sharpness
8 × 10 in	trims 9.6 %	8 × 9 in	8 × 10 in ready-made	12 × 14 in custom	14 × 16 in custom	311 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 12 in	trims 11.5 %	10½ × 12 in	12 × 12 in ready-made	16 × 16 in ready-made	18 × 18 in custom	234 dpi, crisp from a step back
16 × 16 in	trims 11.5 %	14¼ × 16 in	16 × 16 in ready-made	20 × 20 in ready-made	22 × 22 in custom	175 dpi, crisp from a step back
16 × 20 in	trims 9.6 %	16 × 18 in	16 × 20 in ready-made	20 × 24 in ready-made	22 × 26 in custom	155 dpi, crisp from a step back
20 × 20 in	trims 11.5 %	17¾ × 20 in	20 × 20 in ready-made	24 × 24 in ready-made	26 × 26 in custom	140 dpi, soft up close
24 × 24 in	trims 11.5 %	21¼ × 24 in	24 × 24 in ready-made	28 × 28 in custom	30 × 30 in custom	117 dpi, soft up close

Sharpness is worked out from the largest file the museum offers. Above 300 dpi a print holds up at arm’s length; 150 dpi is plenty for a picture seen from across a sofa.

Download

Free for any use, including commercial: this image is public domain (CC0).

Thumbnail (WebP) 560 × 495 px from Room Paintings
Web image 843 × 745 px from Smithsonian American Art Museum
Print file 2,000 × 1,767 px from Smithsonian American Art Museum
Original file 2,819 × 2,490 px from Smithsonian American Art Museum
The museum’s record of this painting Smithsonian American Art Museum

Public domain image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Smithsonian Open Access, CC0). You may print, share, change and sell it without asking. Read what that means on our image license page, and how to get a good result in how to print a public-domain painting.