Where to hang a portrait

A portrait is commissioned for one evening, the one where it's unwrapped, and then it lives on a wall for years. How it looks during those years is decided less by the work than by the place: light, height, distance, and what hangs next to it.

Here is what's worth thinking through in advance, ideally before the size is chosen.

Light

Direct sun is the main enemy. Any print under it loses colour over time, and the loss is permanent. The wall opposite a south-facing window looks like the brightest and best spot, and it is exactly the one that fades first.

The best place is a wall the sun doesn't reach directly: to the side of the window, or far from it. Diffused daylight is plenty for the work to be seen.

Evening light matters just as much. A warm lamp nearby makes the portrait warmer; a cold ceiling light makes it drier and bluer. A directional lamp placed above and to one side gives calm, even illumination. Pointed straight at the work, it gives reflections on the work.

Canvas doesn't reflect. If the only available wall faces a window, canvas will handle it.

Height

The centre of the work belongs at the eye level of a standing person, about 145-150 cm from the floor to the middle of the image. A portrait hung "by the furniture", a hand's width below the ceiling or pressed against the sofa, reads as forgotten.

The exception is rooms where people sit: dining room, study, bedroom. There it's worth dropping the work 10-15 cm so it falls into a seated line of sight.

Above a sofa or a chest of drawers, leave 15-25 cm between the furniture and the bottom edge. Less, and the work slumps onto the backrest; more, and it loses its connection to the furniture and floats alone.

Size and distance

A rule that rarely fails: the scale should match the distance from which the portrait will usually be seen: a metre and a half in a corridor, four metres in a living room. In a narrow hallway a large piece can't be read, because you can't step back from it. In a large room a small one disappears.

A second guide: above furniture, a work sits well when its width is roughly two thirds of the furniture's. A portrait as wide as the sofa argues with it; one a quarter of the width looks accidental.

Before ordering a print, cut a rectangle of the intended size out of paper, or mark it on the wall with masking tape, and leave it there for a day. It's a dull trick, and it's more honest than any amount of imagination.

The wall and the neighbours

A calm, plain background works better than patterned wallpaper: the portrait is detailed enough on its own. On a dark wall a light work wins; on a light wall, anything does.

If other frames hang alongside, keep 5-10 cm between them and align them by their centres rather than their top edges: works of different heights then read as one group.

A portrait of a person is better kept out of a busy passage where shoulders brush it, and off the wall above a radiator: hot dry air is bad for canvas.

Where not to

• Bathrooms, and kitchen walls directly above the hob: damp, steam, grease.
• A wall regularly heated by sun or by heating.
• An entrance hall exposed to the street: swings of temperature and humidity.

In short

1. Not in direct sun.
2. Centre at eye level, 145-150 cm from the floor.
3. 15-25 cm above a sofa back or a chest of drawers.
4. Width around two thirds of the furniture's width.
5. Test the size with a paper rectangle on the wall.