Eurostar is running adverts in the London Underground that depict one of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's masterpieces, Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (1876), just beyond a sliding train door. The image, which shows the boisterous Montmartre dance hall the painter captured at the height of Impressionism, is aimed at luring commuters onto the high-speed rail service to Paris to see the real thing.

There is only one problem: the painting is already in London. Although the canvas belongs to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, it is currently on loan to the National Gallery's exhibition Renoir & Love, which runs until 31 January 2027. For the moment, any British art lover hoping to see the picture has no need to cross the Channel at all. The advert goes further than borrowing the image: it shows the painting inside the train itself, framing the ride as a gallery visit in motion — toward a destination the work has already left.

The advert was photographed by The Art Newspaper in the tube network, where the image of a train carrying the Renoir sits alongside Eurostar's tagline asking, "Why wouldn't you?" The answer writes itself: because the masterpiece is a short tube ride away, not a train ride to Paris.

The mismatch makes an odd fit for the exhibition too. Renoir & Love frames the Impressionist's work through its romantic charge, and the Galette painting — with its crowded dance floor of bourgeois pleasure-seekers — is a centerpiece of the loan show. For the Orsay, which owns the work, the advert could hardly be more flattering; for Eurostar, it is a reminder that borrowed masterpieces don't always stay where the marketing department thinks.