- 28
Eugène Boudin
Estimate
400,000 - 600,000 USD
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Description
- Eugène Louis Boudin
- Trouville, scène de plage
- Signed E. Boudin and dated 73. (lower right); inscribed Trouville (lower left)
- Oil on panel
- 6 1/2 by 12 1/8 in.
- 16.5 by 30.8 cm
Provenance
Alfred Nunès, Yport (sold: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 16, 1894, lot 3)
Gustave Cahen, Paris
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the above)
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on July 4, 1905)
M. Bollag, Zürich (acquired from the above on January 2, 1918)
Private Collection
Galerie Nathan, Zürich
Acquired from the above by the present owner in the early 1990s
Gustave Cahen, Paris
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the above)
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on July 4, 1905)
M. Bollag, Zürich (acquired from the above on January 2, 1918)
Private Collection
Galerie Nathan, Zürich
Acquired from the above by the present owner in the early 1990s
Exhibited
Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Exposition des oeuvres d'Eugène Boudin, 1899, no. 271
Literature
Robert Schmit, Eugène Boudin, Paris, 1973, vol. I, no. 853, illustrated p. 302
Catalogue Note
Painted in 1873, Trouville, scène de plage is an exquisite example of Boudin’s most celebrated subject, the beach at Trouville. Boudin travelled from his home in Paris every summer to Trouville in the 1860s and 1870s, finding countless motifs along the rocky beaches of the Atlantic that he would incorporate into his paintings. As Jean Selz has noted, “What fascinated Boudin at Trouville and Deauville was not so much the sea and ships but the groups of people sitting on the sand or strolling along the beach: fine ladies in crinolines twirling their parasols, pompous gentlemen in top hats, children and little dogs playing on the sand. In the harmony of the colours of the elegant clothes he found a contrast to the delicacy of the skies” (J. Selz, Eugène Boudin, New York, 1982, p. 57).
By the second half of the nineteenth century, Trouville had become a fashionable summer retreat for the French bourgeois, and the people-watching opportunities proved to be of great artistic inspiration to Boudin during his regular summers there throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Captivated by the lively groupings of these elegant leisure classes, he rendered his subjects in quick, impressionistic brushstrokes highlighted by bright blue and red accents. What fascinated the artist the most, however, was the compositional contrast between these densely grouped men, women, children, dogs and tents and the vast expanses of the sky against which they are depicted. Boudin's interest in capturing the fleeting effects of sunlight on sumptuous fabrics and the effect of a windy day on the billowing dresses and tents, so masterfully explored in the present painting, was to have a profound influence on many Impressionist painters.
By the second half of the nineteenth century, Trouville had become a fashionable summer retreat for the French bourgeois, and the people-watching opportunities proved to be of great artistic inspiration to Boudin during his regular summers there throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Captivated by the lively groupings of these elegant leisure classes, he rendered his subjects in quick, impressionistic brushstrokes highlighted by bright blue and red accents. What fascinated the artist the most, however, was the compositional contrast between these densely grouped men, women, children, dogs and tents and the vast expanses of the sky against which they are depicted. Boudin's interest in capturing the fleeting effects of sunlight on sumptuous fabrics and the effect of a windy day on the billowing dresses and tents, so masterfully explored in the present painting, was to have a profound influence on many Impressionist painters.