EUGÈNE BOUDIN | Régates et fête sur la plage de Trouville

Gustave Cahen, Paris (acquired by 1899. Sold: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1ère vente Gustave Cahen, 24th May 1929, lot 43) Knoedler & Co., New York (purchased at the above sale)

Elwood B. Hosmer, Montreal (probably acquired from the above circa 1929)

Arthur Tooth & Sons, London

Acquired from the above by the grandfather of the present owner in 1972

Paris, Ecôle Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Exposition des œuvres d'Eugène Boudin, 1899, no. 268 Bremen, Kunsthalle, Eugène Boudin, 1979, no. 15, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Honfleur, Musée Eugène-Boudin, Eugène Boudin, 1992, no. 38

Glasgow, The Burrell Collection & London, Courtauld Institute Galleries, Boudin at Trouville, 1992-93, no. 40, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Ruth L. Benjamin, Eugène Boudin, New York, 1937, catalogued p. 177 Robert Schmit, Eugène Boudin, Paris, 1973, vol. I, no. 396, illustrated p. 147

Régates et fête sur la plage de Trouville is a beautiful early example of Boudin’s favourite subject. Having settled in Paris after his marriage in 1863, throughout the 1860s and 1870s Boudin travelled every summer to the coast of Normandy, usually staying at the neighbouring resorts of Trouville and Deauville, where he found the inspiration to paint endless variations on the themes most dear to him. Jean Selz wrote: ‘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 aristocracy, and their colourful costumes provided a subject-matter to which Boudin returned throughout his career. Captivated by the picturesque dress of these elegant society figures, Boudin rendered them in quick, Impressionistic brushstrokes highlighted by red, blue and yellow tones. What fascinated the artist was the contrast between these densely grouped men and women and the 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 flowing garments, so masterfully explored in the present painting, was to have a profound influence on Impressionist artists.

In Régates et fête sur la plage de Trouville the artist exhibits his exceptional qualities as an observer of both society and nature. Vivien Hamilton wrote: ‘Although Boudin preferred painting groups of people to painting individuals, he succeeded in capturing the characteristic gestures, movements and costumes of the individual figures with astonishing accuracy. The artistic challenge presented by the subject was not only the representation of movement, colour and light but also the successful incorporation of the human figure into the landscape. At their best, the beach scenes vibrate with subtle nuances of light, colour, shade and movement, tiny and hasty specks of pure colour simultaneously dramatizing the surface and bringing the whole into harmony’ (V. Hamilton in Boudin at Trouville (exhibition catalogue) op. cit., p. 63).