Eugène Boudin

Sale: G. Reichard, New York, February 26, 1896, lot 133
Durand-Ruel, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Arthur A. Crosby, New York (acquired from the above on January 7, 1905)
Durand-Ruel, New York (acquired from the above on March 23, 1911)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, July 1, 1964, lot 69
Arthur Tooth & Sons, London (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired from the above in December 1965

Paris, Durand-Ruel, Exposition Boudin, 1898, no. 49
Paris, Durand-Ruel, Exposition Boudin, 1929, no. 19
New York, Durand-Ruel, Exposition Boudin, 1933, no. 8

Ruth L. Benjamin, Eugène Boudin, New York, 1937, p. 191
Robert Schmit, Eugène Boudin 1824-1898, vol. III, Paris, 1973, no. 3346, illustrated p. 284

Boudin’s sun-drenched brushwork was praised by his peers for its ability to capture the ever-changing skies of northern maritime France. He received effusive accolades from his peers, most notably Corot who famously hailed him the “King of the Sky” and Courbet who was moved to declare: “My God, you are a seraph, Boudin! You are the only one of us who really knows the sky” (quoted in Ruth J. Benjamin, Eugène Boudin, New York, 1937, p. 46). These skies inspired a new generation of painters, chief amongst them Claude Monet, to whom Boudin became a close friend and mentor. After observing Boudin paint for the first time, Monet declared: “Suddenly it was as if a veil had been torn from my eyes. I understood what painting could be. Boudin’s absorption in his work, and his independence, were enough to decide the entire future and development of my painting” (quoted in Peter C. Sutton, Boudin: Impressionist Marine Paintings (exhibition catalogue), Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, 1991, p. 54).

Depicting the port of Fécamp, in Seine-Maritime in Upper Normandy, the present work is a stunning and graceful testament to Boudin’s favorite subject and to his mature style. Following the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, there was a struggle to understand and define the new national identity within France, and this struggle very much informed Boudin’s artistic pursuits. The country had lost the territories of Alsace and parts of Lorraine to the German Empire, significantly altering the country’s borders, topography and culture, and at this time a universal education system inclusive of French geography was established, forcing the citizenry to grapple with the essential question of what it meant to be French. Landscape painting within France was elevated to a status of even greater importance, and indeed the many seascapes and harbor scenes painted by Boudin in the final decades of the nineteenth century may be viewed as an exploration of this concern. Depicting the delineation between land and sea, coastal imagery was of great import not only for what it allowed Boudin to achieve aesthetically, in exploring and rendering myriad and evolving atmospheric conditions, but also as a visual representation of France’s geographical boundaries at a time when so many of its people felt themselves unmoored.