This painting shows six people standing closely together, facing the left, mostly seen from the waist up. The scene is heavily shadowed, and the facial features of the people are mostly made of dark lines.

The Beggars

Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879)

Date: c. 1843
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 23½ × 29 in (59.5 × 73.5 cm)
Museum: National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 1963.10.12. See the museum’s record
Credit: Chester Dale Collection

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (Open Access, CC0).

Palette

Closest wall colors:

Hang it

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

Where Print size

Print: 16 × 20 in, filling the paper (trims 1.2 % of the picture)
Center: 51¼ in (130 cm) from the floor
Above the sofa: 8 in (20 cm) from the sofa to the frame
Ideal width: 56 to 63 in over an 84 in sofa
Why this height: Centered at eye level, this frame would not sit 6 to 10 in above the sofa, so the 8 in gap sets the height.

16 × 20 in landscape print (41 × 51 cm), centered 51¼ in from the floor, 8 in above the sofa. Drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall.

Try it on your wall color

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Print it

Standard paper sizes that keep this painting’s proportions, the frames that fit them, and how sharp each one prints.

Paper	Filling the paper	Printed whole	Frame	Frame with a 2 in mat	Frame with a 3 in mat	Sharpness
8 × 10 in	trims 1.2 %	8 × 10 in	8 × 10 in ready-made	12 × 14 in custom	14 × 16 in custom	683 dpi, crisp up close
11 × 14 in	trims 3 %	11 × 13½ in	11 × 14 in ready-made	15 × 18 in custom	17 × 20 in custom	488 dpi, crisp up close
16 × 20 in	trims 1.2 %	16 × 19¾ in	16 × 20 in ready-made	20 × 24 in ready-made	22 × 26 in custom	341 dpi, crisp 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 × 452 px from Room Paintings
Web image 843 × 681 px from National Gallery of Art
Print file 2,000 × 1,615 px from National Gallery of Art
Original file 6,835 × 5,519 px from National Gallery of Art
The museum’s record of this painting National Gallery of Art

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (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.