As with the pastel drawn at Villers-sur-Mer (see lot 305), La plage à marée basse was done during Degas's excursion to Normandy in the late summer of 1869. In contrast to the preceding landscape, however, the present work offers no identifiable landmark which would enable the viewer to pinpoint its location along the coast. Indeed, devoid as it is of any central forms, La plage à marée basse goes beyond the Villers-sur-Mer pastel in evoking the vast emptiness of open space. It expresses a quiet solitude and hints at a formless metaphysical dimension which may seem uncharacteristic of this artist, who is more commonly admired as an observer of contemporary life. In works of this kind Degas approaches the absolute antithesis of the ideals governing linear form as set forth by Ingres and his followers earlier in the century.

Richard Kendall (see Degas Landscapes, New York, 1994, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exhibition catalogue, pp. 98-104) lists a number of precedents for a painting of this kind: Degas would have been familiar with Turner, Friedrich, Courbet, Whistler, and perhaps most significantly, the atmostpheric studies of Eugène Boudin, whom he probably met earlier in the decade. Even if Degas appears to evoke the elements of nature in their most amorphous manner, he is quite specific about what he is observing and setting down. In an inscription on the reverse of this pastel, the artist writes: "The round curves of the large gray-green clouds are outlined one against the other and stand out much more clearly against the light, the line of the sea is sharper and the tone is more silvery-green."

Lemoisne assumed that Degas drew these landscapes in his Paris studio. However, Richard Kendall (op. cit., pp. 105-106) argues that the precise and careful observation evident in these works, Degas's extraordinary visual memory notwithstanding, could only have been achieved had the artist had been working en plein air. Degas had already worked in this manner in Italy (see lot 315) and in choosing to execute this series in pastel was taking advantage of the medium's light weight, portability, and ease in handling outdoors. In fact, the present pastel has small holes around the edges of the sheet left by thumbtacks which the artist probably used to secure the paper to his drawing board. This would not have been necessary had the artist been working on this small sheet indoors; on the other hand, it would have been difficult to work outside even in a light wind if the sheet had not been tacked down.