EUGÈNE LOUIS BOUDIN | BRUXELLES, LE CANAL DE LOUVAIN

Galerie Georges Petit, Paris

L. Bernard, Paris

Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11 May 1901, lot 15

M. Rosenberg, Paris (acquired by 1911)

Sir William van Horne, Montreal

Private Collection (acquired by descent from the above. Sold: Sotheby’s, New York, 4 May 2011, lot 417)

MacConnal-Mason Gallery, London

Robert Schmit, Eugène Boudin, Catalogue Raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, vol. I, Paris, 1973, cat. no.636, illustrated p.230

Colloquially regarded as the 'grandfather of Impressionism', Eugène Boudin was one of the first French artists to expound the virtues of plein air painting, and was the catalyst for Claude Monet's progression from caricature and towards landscape painting. Taking Monet under his wing in the late 1850s, Boudin's influence was to loom large over Western art for generations to come.

The present work was painted in 1871 during Boudin's enforced exile from France during the Franco-Prussian war, during which period he had relocated to Antwerp. He subsequently made a number of return trips to Belgium in the following years. Boudin was greatly inspired by Dutch Golden Age painters, and the images of Dutch and Belgian waterways which he produced during this period strongly bear this influence.