Water laps at a curving shoreline in front of a steep sandy dune carpeted in grass, shrubs, and trees in this horizontal landscape painting. The dune takes up the lower right quadrant of the composition.

Dunes by the Sea

Jacob van Ruisdael (Dutch, 1628–1682)

Date: 1648
Medium: oil on panel
Size: 17¾ × 24¼ in (45.4 × 61.6 cm)
Museum: National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 2017.55.1. See the museum’s record
Credit: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

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

Palette

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Hang it

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

Where Print size

Print: 36 × 48 in, filling the paper (trims 1.7 % of the picture)
Center: 61¼ in (156 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.

36 × 48 in landscape print (91 × 122 cm), centered 61¼ in from the floor, 8 in above the sofa. Drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall.

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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
5 × 7 in	trims 3.1 %	5 × 6¾ in	5 × 7 in ready-made	9 × 11 in custom	11 × 13 in custom	2421 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 16 in	trims 1.7 %	11¾ × 16 in	12 × 16 in ready-made	16 × 20 in ready-made	18 × 22 in custom	1039 dpi, crisp up close
18 × 24 in	trims 1.7 %	17¾ × 24 in	18 × 24 in ready-made	22 × 28 in ready-made	24 × 30 in ready-made	692 dpi, crisp up close
30 × 40 in	trims 1.7 %	29½ × 40 in	30 × 40 in ready-made	34 × 44 in custom	36 × 46 in custom	415 dpi, crisp up close
36 × 48 in	trims 1.7 %	35½ × 48 in	36 × 48 in ready-made	40 × 52 in custom	42 × 54 in custom	346 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 × 412 px from Room Paintings
Web image 843 × 620 px from National Gallery of Art
Print file 2,000 × 1,472 px from National Gallery of Art
Original file 16,947 × 12,470 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.