Tall, billowing, lavender-purple and shell-pink clouds line the distant horizon over a vast plain of flat grassy land in this horizontal landscape painting.

Sunlight and Shadow: The Newbury Marshes

Martin Johnson Heade (American, 1819–1904)

Date: c. 1871/1875
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 12 × 26½ in (30.5 × 67.3 cm)
Museum: National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 2010.74.1. See the museum’s record
Credit: John Wilmerding Collection

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

Palette

Closest wall colors:

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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: 20 × 44 in, the whole painting on 20 × 60 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 × 44 in panoramic print (51 × 112 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

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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 36.6 %	3¼ × 7 in	5 × 7 in ready-made	9 × 11 in custom	11 × 13 in custom	5520 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 16 in	trims 39.6 %	7¼ × 16 in	12 × 16 in ready-made	16 × 20 in ready-made	18 × 22 in custom	2430 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 36 in	trims 26.4 %	12 × 26½ in	12 × 36 in custom	16 × 40 in custom	18 × 42 in custom	1467 dpi, crisp up close
20 × 30 in	trims 32 %	13½ × 30 in	20 × 30 in ready-made	24 × 34 in custom	26 × 36 in custom	1296 dpi, crisp up close
24 × 36 in	trims 32 %	16¼ × 36 in	24 × 36 in ready-made	28 × 40 in custom	30 × 42 in custom	1080 dpi, crisp up close
20 × 60 in	trims 26.4 %	20 × 44 in	20 × 60 in custom	24 × 64 in custom	26 × 66 in custom	881 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 × 254 px from Room Paintings
Web image 843 × 383 px from National Gallery of Art
Print file 2,000 × 909 px from National Gallery of Art
Original file 38,885 × 17,664 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.