Mottled, geometric shapes painted in shades of peanut brown, beige, grass and spruce green, smoky gray, golden and buttercup yellow, and topaz and lapis blue are arranged across this wide, horizontal, abstract painting.

The Watering Can (Emblems: The Garden)

Roger de La Fresnaye (French, 1885–1925)

Date: 1913
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 35 × 79 in (88.9 × 200.7 cm)
Museum: National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 2014.18.26. See the museum’s record
Credit: Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

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 × 45¼ 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 × 45¼ in panoramic print (51 × 115 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 38 %	3 × 7 in	5 × 7 in ready-made	9 × 11 in custom	11 × 13 in custom	4201 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 16 in	trims 41 %	7 × 16 in	12 × 16 in ready-made	16 × 20 in ready-made	18 × 22 in custom	1834 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 36 in	trims 24.7 %	12 × 27 in	12 × 36 in custom	16 × 40 in custom	18 × 42 in custom	1085 dpi, crisp up close
20 × 30 in	trims 33.6 %	13¼ × 30 in	20 × 30 in ready-made	24 × 34 in custom	26 × 36 in custom	979 dpi, crisp up close
24 × 36 in	trims 33.6 %	16 × 36 in	24 × 36 in ready-made	28 × 40 in custom	30 × 42 in custom	819 dpi, crisp up close
20 × 60 in	trims 24.7 %	20 × 45¼ in	20 × 60 in custom	24 × 64 in custom	26 × 66 in custom	651 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 × 245 px from Room Paintings
Web image 843 × 369 px from National Gallery of Art
Print file 2,000 × 875 px from National Gallery of Art
Original file 29,773 × 13,025 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.