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Lot Essay
Courbet spent three months in the late summer of 1865 at Trouville, where, writing to his father in November of that year, he reported that he painted 'twenty-five seascapes, autumn skies, each more free and extraordinary than the last'. In what might be fairly described as 'series' paintings some twenty years before Monet set about the same type of project, and with very obvious plein-airism, Courbet depicted the same stretch beach at differing times of the day and under variously gravid skies. Other important examples of the group exist in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne (Fernier 498) and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (F. 519).
The present picture was among those Courbet exhibited in 1867 at the Rond-Point l'Alma. This show, a similarly bold undertaking to Courbet's 1855 independent exhibition, met a mixed reception. Of the 137 pictures shown, the largest single group was made up of the Trouville seascapes. Such was the importance that Courbet attached to these pictures that the present picture, although sold in the preceding year, was borrowed from the new owner for the purposes of the exhibition.
La plage de Trouville mare basse formed part of the Peto collection. Begun between the wars, R. A. Peto's collection included important impressionist and post-impressionist works by, amongst others, Pissarro, Monet, Czanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Bonnard. Following the war, individual pictures from the collection were generously lent to exhibitions worldwide, while the collection itself was the subject of three Arts Council touring shows.
The present picture was among those Courbet exhibited in 1867 at the Rond-Point l'Alma. This show, a similarly bold undertaking to Courbet's 1855 independent exhibition, met a mixed reception. Of the 137 pictures shown, the largest single group was made up of the Trouville seascapes. Such was the importance that Courbet attached to these pictures that the present picture, although sold in the preceding year, was borrowed from the new owner for the purposes of the exhibition.
La plage de Trouville mare basse formed part of the Peto collection. Begun between the wars, R. A. Peto's collection included important impressionist and post-impressionist works by, amongst others, Pissarro, Monet, Czanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Bonnard. Following the war, individual pictures from the collection were generously lent to exhibitions worldwide, while the collection itself was the subject of three Arts Council touring shows.