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Lot Essay
The Tour Malakoff and its gothic house were located at 7/9 rue des Roches Noires, in Trouville, not far from the renowned quartiers des bains. Built circa 1855 for Charles Mozin, the house was soon sold in 1866 to Mr. Maquet, one of the numerous shareholders of the elegant Société du Casino-Salon. The neighbouring house, visible in the present painting, was itself purchased by the Vicountess de Courval in 1874, as a summer residence. By the Second Empire the number of inhabitants of Trouville had doubled to 3,504, transforming the town into the summer rendezvous of Parisian high society, and thereby earning for itself the title of la reine des plages.
It is no surprise that as a native of Honfleur and the son of a ship's captain, Boudin devoted his artistic career to painting the sea coast he had always known and loved. Having settled in Paris after his marriage in 1863, through the 1860s and 1870s Boudin travelled every summer to Trouville where he had found the inspiration to paint endless variations on the themes most dear to him.
Executed during the summer of 1877, La Tour Malakoff et le rivage à Trouville rivals many of Boudin's most celebrated sea-shore paintings. In this broad and airy panorama, the fashionable figure has become secondary to the true subject of the painting - a celebration of nature. Romanticism, he concluded, was at an end; "henceforward" he wrote, "it is necessary to study the simple beauties of nature." (quoted in Boudin, ex. cat., Marlborough Fine Art Limited, London, 1958, p. 9) Thus, he captures the broad expanse of the beach and sky, translating the effects of light onto the sand and surrounding buildings. Interested in the landscape behind the beach as in the beach itself, he aims to the marvellous beauty of nature in a harmonious whole.
"Sometimes when I'm out walking, in a melancholy frame of mind" Boudin marvels, "I look at this light which floods the earth, which quivers on the water and plays on clothes and it is frightening to think how much genius is required to capture so many difficulties, how limited man's spirit is, not being able to put all these things together in his head. And then again I sense that poetry is there and sense how to capture it. I sometimes catch a glimpse of what would have to be expressed." (G. de Knyff, Boudin raconté par lui-même, sa vie - son atelier - son oeuvre, Paris, 1976, p. 42)
It is no surprise that as a native of Honfleur and the son of a ship's captain, Boudin devoted his artistic career to painting the sea coast he had always known and loved. Having settled in Paris after his marriage in 1863, through the 1860s and 1870s Boudin travelled every summer to Trouville where he had found the inspiration to paint endless variations on the themes most dear to him.
Executed during the summer of 1877, La Tour Malakoff et le rivage à Trouville rivals many of Boudin's most celebrated sea-shore paintings. In this broad and airy panorama, the fashionable figure has become secondary to the true subject of the painting - a celebration of nature. Romanticism, he concluded, was at an end; "henceforward" he wrote, "it is necessary to study the simple beauties of nature." (quoted in Boudin, ex. cat., Marlborough Fine Art Limited, London, 1958, p. 9) Thus, he captures the broad expanse of the beach and sky, translating the effects of light onto the sand and surrounding buildings. Interested in the landscape behind the beach as in the beach itself, he aims to the marvellous beauty of nature in a harmonious whole.
"Sometimes when I'm out walking, in a melancholy frame of mind" Boudin marvels, "I look at this light which floods the earth, which quivers on the water and plays on clothes and it is frightening to think how much genius is required to capture so many difficulties, how limited man's spirit is, not being able to put all these things together in his head. And then again I sense that poetry is there and sense how to capture it. I sometimes catch a glimpse of what would have to be expressed." (G. de Knyff, Boudin raconté par lui-même, sa vie - son atelier - son oeuvre, Paris, 1976, p. 42)