Carl‑Johann de Nassau — Watercolours
Volume I €1,200 rises in —
Watercolour of tall palms and trees framing a blue bay, with violet mountains across the water
Overlooking Mauna Lani — watercolour on paper, framed Volume I, No. 1

Watercolours painted from life, in front of the thing itself.

Landscapes, towns and rooms, painted outdoors and on site by Carl‑Johann de Nassau. Ten framed originals are released at a time, at a published price that only ever rises.

Volume I · 10 framed originals · €1,200 each · free shipping worldwide See the works for sale
Watercolour of the Seine with a bridge and the Eiffel Tower I — The gallery

Gallery

Landscapes, towns, gardens and figures from the studio, painted in France, Italy, Switzerland and Bali.

Enter the gallery → A House in Lodtunduh, shown in its natural wood frame II — For sale

For sale

The current volume: ten framed originals at one published price, with free insured shipping worldwide.

See the ten works → Watercolour of a salon with two flowered chairs, a small table and a curtained window III — Interiors

Interiors

Rooms in watercolour, and commissions to paint your own home, from life, on site.

Interiors & commissions → Carl-Johann de Nassau painting in a field of tall grass under a white umbrella IV — The painter

About

Born in Paris in 1992, trained in a Florentine atelier, painting from life ever since.

Meet the painter →
I — The gallery

From the studio

Each of these watercolours was painted outdoors or on site, in a single sitting, in front of the subject itself — in France, Italy, Switzerland and Bali. Tap any painting to see it larger.

The works available to buy now, framed and at the published price, are in For sale. Rooms and interiors have their own page: Interiors.

II — For sale

Ten watercolours a volume, at a price that only ever rises.

Every painting is an original — one of a kind, painted from life, signed, and framed ready to hang. The price is not negotiated. It is published in advance, it is the same for every work in the collection, and it moves in one direction only.

Current volume Volume I September 2026 — 10 original watercolours
Price, any work €1,200 Framed, ready to hang · free shipping worldwide
Next volume — Announced before it takes effect

The collection

Ten originals — €1,200 each

Framed, ready to hang

Included in the price
A framed watercolour hanging on a grey wall: a pale natural wood moulding, a deep white bevelled mount, and behind glass a painting of a tiled Balinese house beside a lane
A House in Lodtunduh — hung, as every watercolour is supplied

A watercolour is a fragile thing until it is behind glass. Rather than send you a sheet of paper and leave the rest to you, every work leaves the studio finished — moulding, mount, glass, hanging fixture — and the published price covers all of it.

Moulding
Natural wood, warm-grained and unobtrusive. It holds a watercolour without competing with it, and it suits a plain wall as readily as a hung group.
Mount
A deep, soft-white bevelled mount, generous on all four sides, which lifts the paper clear of the glass and gives the painting room to breathe.
Glazed and wired
Sealed behind glass and fitted to hang. It goes on the wall the afternoon it arrives — there is nothing left for you to arrange.
Or bare, if you prefer
Some collectors have their own framer, or their own house style. Say so when you write and the work ships unframed, flat between archival boards, at the same price.

The price index

Published in advance

Most painters price by mood, by gallery, by who is asking. I price by a rule I publish, so that anyone buying a watercolour from me knows exactly what the next person will pay — and what they would have paid a year ago.

Ten, then no more

Each volume is ten new originals, and no more. When a volume closes it closes for good. No reprints, no editions, no reissues.

One price, all works

Every watercolour in the current volume carries the same published price, whatever its subject or size. There is nothing to haggle over.

Up, every volume

Each volume is published above the one before, and the new price applies to unsold works from earlier volumes too. Nothing is ever marked down.

Never below the line

I undertake not to sell any watercolour, to anyone, for less than the published price standing on the day it is sold. No private discounts, ever.

VolumeOpensWorksPrice per work

The schedule above is generated from the rule, not set by hand.

The register

Every work, sold or not

Each watercolour carries a certificate number, and that number stays with it for good — printed on the certificate and on a code fixed to the back of the frame. Scan it and this register opens the painting's own entry. Works that have been acquired are not removed from this list; they stay, with the price they cleared at, so that anyone can see whether the rule on this page is real.

CertificateWorkVolumeStatusPrice

Works still in the collection show today's published price, which moves with the index. Acquired works show the price actually paid, which never changes.

What arrives

01 — The work

An original, not a print

Watercolour on cold-pressed archival paper, painted from life and signed by hand. There is exactly one of each, and there will never be another.

02 — The frame

On the wall that afternoon

Framed in natural wood behind a deep white mount and glass, wired and ready to hang. The frame is included in the published price, never added to it.

03 — The papers

Certificate and code

A signed certificate of authenticity, and a code fixed to the back of the frame. Scan it and the painting's own entry in the register opens — title, volume, date of sale, price paid.

04 — Delivery

Free, worldwide

Shipping is free to any country, insured for the full purchase price, and packed for the glass to travel — corner-blocked, double-boxed, glass-taped.

05 — If it isn't right

Fourteen days

Return it within fourteen days of delivery, undamaged and in its frame, for a full refund including return carriage. The work simply goes back into the collection.

On collecting a living painter

Why now

I cannot tell you what a watercolour of mine will be worth in twenty years. Nobody can tell you that about any painting, and anyone who does is selling you something other than art.

But there is something worth saying about timing, and it has nothing to do with money.

When Gustave Caillebotte bought his friends' paintings — more than seventy of them, by Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley — he was not investing. He was a painter buying from painters, keeping working men working. He willed the collection to France, and in 1897 a room was opened for it. When Victor Chocquet bought his first Cézannes at the Hôtel Drouot in 1875, the room was jeering at the canvases on the block. He went on to own around thirty of them.

Neither man could have told you what those pictures would be worth. They bought them because they liked them, and because they happened to be standing there while it was going on. That is the part that cannot be repeated — not the prices. The proximity.

Nobody can join that story now. It closed a century ago. But every collection that ever came to matter began the same way: with somebody buying a painting from a living artist, at a price that seemed ordinary at the time, because the painting moved them.

These watercolours are painted outdoors, in front of the thing itself, in one sitting, by someone who intends to go on painting for as long as his hands allow. The register records the order in which they were placed, and that order is never rewritten. Whoever is early stays early.

I cannot tell you this will be worth more. I can tell you that every painting which ever became valuable was bought by someone who liked it first.

Acquire a watercolour

Press Buy now under any work to pay securely by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay — it is then yours, and ships framed and insured, free, to your door. Or write to the artist by email or WhatsApp, and the work is held in your name for 48 hours while we arrange it together.

Write to the artist Message on WhatsApp See the ten works
III — Interiors

Rooms in watercolour

A room has its own weather. Light comes through a window and moves across fabric, wood and wall; by the afternoon it is a different room. These interiors are painted the way the landscapes are — on site, from life, in front of the room itself.

Salon with flowered chairs — watercolour on paperInteriors
Interiors, often bathed in Nordic light, where the interplay of shadows, fabrics and lines creates a true visual melody.Carl-Johann de Nassau

Interiors

Painted from life

Commission your own interior

Painted in your home
A framed interior watercolour standing on a wooden easel: a red-curtained room with a round table and chairs
An interior watercolour, framed, on the easel

I come to your home and paint it, room by room, from life. Every watercolour is unique — shaped by the light, the colours, the atmosphere and the feeling of the day it is painted. For that reason I do not accept commissions from photographs.

CommissionTime on siteFee
1 watercolour2 days minimum€1,500
2 watercolours3 days minimum€2,500
3 watercolours3 days minimum€3,500
4 watercolours4 days minimum€4,500
5 watercolours4 days minimum€5,500
6 watercolours5 days minimum€6,000
7 watercolours5 days minimum€7,000
8 watercolours6 days minimum€8,000
Down payment. 50% of the fee is paid before the commission begins. Travel. The fee does not include the artist's travel or accommodation.
01 — Write

Tell me about the house

Where it is, which rooms or views you love, and how many watercolours you have in mind.

02 — Agree

The rooms and the dates

We settle the number of paintings and the days on site. The 50% down payment confirms them.

03 — Paint

On site, from life

I paint in your rooms, in their own light, over the days the commission needs — never from a photograph.

04 — Keep

A record of your home

Original watercolours of the rooms you live in: an artistic record of your home, made to last for generations.

Propose a commission

Write with a few words about your home and the rooms you would like painted. I reply personally.

Write to the artist Message on WhatsApp
IV — The painter

Carl‑Johann de Nassau

Painter in watercolour and oil. Born in Paris on 15 August 1992; trained in Florence; working between Europe and Bali.

Carl-Johann de Nassau seated in a field of tall grass under a white umbrella, painting
Painting from life, outdoors
Watercolour of a pale French manor house among trees, its shutters blue, reflected in still water in the foreground
House on the Water — 13 août 2024

The turning point was in Florence, on the bank of the Arno. Carl-Johann had made a sketch of the Ponte Vecchio that would not come right, and he threw it into the water. Standing there, he made himself a promise: I will not leave this place without knowing how to draw.

Painting is impossible without knowing how to draw.

Three years followed in a traditional Florentine atelier where improvisation had no place — drawing and painting from life, observing, constructing, refining. Only after the pencil was mastered did he permit himself the brush. Everything since has rested on that foundation.

His lineage is the one he chose for himself in the museums: Corot, that wonderful painter of the outdoors; Winslow Homer, the American master who blended discipline with freedom; Sosthène Weis, whose formats and moods shaped his early years. Having spent so much time with them in museums, I feel as though I know them. I understand what mattered to them.

Born in Paris, he grew up in France and finished his schooling in England, at Ampleforth College. At nineteen he set out on a long journey through Latin America, then worked for several months in Shanghai, before the three years in Florence. Today he lives between Europe and Bali with his wife and their children.

The watercolours are painted outdoors, in front of the thing itself — a ridge in the Alps, a lane in Normandy at first light, a courtyard in Alsace, a path through the palms in Bali. Each is finished on the spot, in one sitting, at the speed the light allows. That is the discipline the medium imposes, and the reason no two can ever be alike.

Watercolour painting is about acceptance. Letting go. It is a powerful inner process, always in motion.

Prince Carl-Johann de Nassau

Three themes

Travel

Not as mere movement, but as a response to a visual or emotional call: contrasts of colour, of cultures, of peaceful atmospheres. See the gallery.

Interiors

Rooms often bathed in Nordic light, where the interplay of shadows, fabrics and lines creates a visual melody. See the interiors.

Portraiture

A meeting point between the discipline of line and human depth.

The book

Cover of Performing the Art of Watercolour by Carl-Johann de Nassau

Performing the Art of Watercolour

An illustrated guide to painting from life: a brief history of the medium, the principles of picture making, a compact outdoor kit, twelve pigments and the practical process of painting in front of nature. Its argument is that watercolour is not a matter of talent, but of practice, understanding and the contemplation of nature.

Write to the painter

For a painting, a commission, an exhibition or anything else — by email or WhatsApp.

carljohanndenassau@gmail.com Message on WhatsApp Instagram