Across a short stretch of sand in front of us, waves of bottle-green water break over two boulders on the shoreline, with sailboats in the water beyond, in this wide, horizontal painting.

Rio de Janeiro Bay

Martin Johnson Heade (American, 1819–1904)

Date: 1864
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 18 × 35¾ in (45.5 × 91.1 cm)
Museum: National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 1965.2.1. See the museum’s record
Credit: Gift of the Avalon Foundation

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (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: 20 × 40 in, the whole painting on 30 × 40 in paper
Center: 53¼ in (135 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.

20 × 40 in panoramic print (51 × 102 cm), centered 53¼ in from the floor, 8 in above the sofa. 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
5 × 7 in	trims 30.1 %	3½ × 7 in	5 × 7 in ready-made	9 × 11 in custom	11 × 13 in custom	1698 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 16 in	trims 33.4 %	8 × 16 in	12 × 16 in ready-made	16 × 20 in ready-made	18 × 22 in custom	743 dpi, crisp up close
18 × 24 in	trims 33.4 %	12 × 24 in	18 × 24 in ready-made	22 × 28 in ready-made	24 × 30 in ready-made	495 dpi, crisp up close
20 × 30 in	trims 25.1 %	15 × 30 in	20 × 30 in ready-made	24 × 34 in custom	26 × 36 in custom	396 dpi, crisp up close
24 × 36 in	trims 25.1 %	18 × 36 in	24 × 36 in ready-made	28 × 40 in custom	30 × 42 in custom	330 dpi, crisp up close
30 × 40 in	trims 33.4 %	20 × 40 in	30 × 40 in ready-made	34 × 44 in custom	36 × 46 in custom	297 dpi, crisp from a step back

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 × 276 px from Room Paintings
Web image 843 × 416 px from National Gallery of Art
Print file 2,000 × 987 px from National Gallery of Art
Original file 12,040 × 5,944 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.