Custom Monet Style Couple Portrait, Hand-Painted from Your Photos

Two people, one canvas. Send the picture you both like, or one of each of you if you were never photographed together, and you appear side by side in a single oil painting made by hand.

Camille and Monet, and what a pair looks like in paint

Camille Doncieux met Monet in 1865 and began to model for him. They married in a civil ceremony on 28 June 1870, shortly before the Franco-Prussian War, and in 1871 settled at Argenteuil. The shop holds Bazille and Camille (Study for “Déjeuner sur l’Herbe”) and Luncheon on the Grass.

In 1866 Monet began Women in the Garden, with Camille posing. The canvas stood about two and a half metres high, so he dug a trench and lowered it into the ground to reach the top while painting. He painted outdoors and finished indoors. The lesson for a commission is simple: two figures and the place around them were handled as one picture.

Choosing the picture, or two pictures

One good photograph of both of you is the easiest start. If none exists, send one clear photograph of each, in similar light and from a similar distance. Add a line about how you would like to stand: close, side by side, one a little ahead.

The space between two people tells as much as their faces. Shoulders touching read as ease, a hand on an arm as trust, a small gap as two separate people sharing a frame. Choose the photograph where that gap looks like you, and say so.

Two people at different ages

If one photograph is recent and the other is from years ago, say whether each face should look as it does now or as it did then. A pair painted as they looked when they met is a common request.

Looking at each other, or at the lens

Where you look changes what the painting says. Two people turned towards each other make a picture about the pair. Two people facing the viewer make a picture of a couple being photographed. Neither is better, and the photograph you choose already decides it, so pick with that in mind.

Two directions for the pair

The faithful direction keeps clothes, room and colours as shown. The Monet-inspired direction keeps both faces accurate and sends the rest outdoors: grass, water and leaves in short touches, light falling across both figures at once. It suits a garden walk or a seaside photograph. For a formal portrait, or when a detail such as a ring or patterned shirt must stay exact, the faithful version is the better fit.

Either way, this is a contemporary painting in the manner of Monet, not an original by him and not a museum reproduction.

Questions couples ask

Can we be painted from two separate photographs?

Yes. Send one clear photograph of each, ideally in the same sort of light, and both appear at a matching scale.

What if one of us is much taller?

Mention the difference in height in your request, and say whether it should show.

Should the painting show us as we are or as we were?

Both are possible. Send the photographs and say which age each face should have.

Can a ring or a patterned shirt stay exact?

Mention it in your request. Small details of that kind are best kept in the faithful direction, or in the Monet-inspired one with a note that the detail should stay clear.

Details of a couple commission

Two figures need slightly more canvas than one. Sizes follow your photograph’s proportions, and the canvas goes out rolled in a tube, stretched over bars and ready to hang, or framed.

• Price: two people on the smallest canvas, sent rolled, start at $262 (30 × 40 cm, rolled canvas).
• Time at the easel: 2 to 4 weeks.
• A photograph of the finished painting arrives before dispatch, with corrections possible.
• Delivery once shipped: 5 to 7 business days.
• You can cancel your order at any time until it ships.
• Return period: 30 days.

A whole household in one frame is covered on the family portrait page.

Start a couple portrait request