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Lot Essay
Scène de plage was painted by Boudin when he was 41 years of age--a painting executed at the peak of his powers during a five-year period when he painted a series of magnificent beach scenes. Comparison with related crinoline subjects such as Scène de plage in the Minneapolis Institute of Art (S.254) seems to confirm that the location of the present picture is the celebrated beach of Trouville.
During he summer of 1865, Boudin worked on the Normandy coast at the same time as his illustrious contemporaries, Monet, Courbet, and Whistler. Amongst all of them, it was Boudin who had the greatest affinity for the sea and above all else he cherished the wonderful range of light effects which working by the sea could bring. He had a great eye for the limitless skies, punctuated by beautiful cloud formations and often he would dedicate more than half of the canvas to depicting the nuances of a sky above the figures on the beach. Corot had no doubt of Boudin's skills saying simply, 'Boudin, you are the king of the skies.'
Perhaps his greatest seascapes are the crinolines which he painted at sunset. This certainly seems to be confirmed by the number of sunset beach scenes which have found their way into the world's great museums. Aside from the work in the Minneapolis Institute of Art mentioned above, others are housed in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (S.298) the Walter H. Annenberg Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (S.342) and the Louvre, Paris.
Charles Beaudelaire carefully describes the qualities and working methods of Boudin in his Salon review of 1859. In the description which follows, we can appreciate how different Boudin's approach was to his 19th Century French academic contemporaries:
'On the margin of each of [his] studies, so rapidly and so faithfully sketched from the waves and the clouds (which are of all things the most inconstant and difficult to grasp, both in form and in colour), he has inscribed the date, the time and the wind. If you have ever had the time to become acquainted with these meteorological beauties, you will be able to verify by memory the accuracy of M. Boudin's observations. Cover the inscription with your hand, and you could guess the season, the time and the wind. I am not exaggerating. I have seen it. In the end, all these clouds, with their fantastic and luminous forms; these ferments of gloom; these immensities of green and pink, suspended and added one upon another; these gaping furnaces; these firmaments of black or purple satin, crumpled, rolled or torn; these horizons in mourning, or streaming with molten metal--in short, all these depths and all these splendours rose to my brain like a heady drink or like the eloquence of opium.' (C. Beaudelaire, 'The Salon of 1859', in Art in Paris, 1845-1862: Salons and Other Exhibitions, J. Mayne (trans. and ed.), Greenwich, 1965, pp. 199-200).
Boudin had unquestionably been encouraged to work in Trouville by the commissions and sales that work in this fashionable coastal resort would bring. In 1863 Queen Hortense and the Empress Eugènie made trips to Trouville and Deauville which immediately made both resorts very fashionable. Of his new public, Boudin wrote 'they love my ladies on the beach and some people say that there is a thread of gold to exploit there.' In the decade that followed, Boudin continued to visit Normandy and found for himself great financial security as a result. It is extraordinary to think that had Monet not been in such dire financial straits in the spring of 1870, he would perhaps have not needed to turn to Boudin for guidance. In the summer of 1870, Monet fled his Parisian creditors to join Boudin in Trouville in search of subject matter as well as wealthy patronage. A fine example of Monet's debt to Boudin is the wonderful Sur les planches de Trouville of 1870 offered at Christie's in London in December 1997, Lot 10. In handling and feel it is the closest that Monet came to working in Boudin's style.
The incredible impact that Boudin's working methods and subject had on Monet in 1870 as they worked together is well recorded in the history of Impressionism. In this critical summer, Boudin was Monet's mentor and with it his painting took new direction:
'I agreed to work with him in the open air... I watched him with some apprehension, then more attentively and finally it was like the sudden tearing of a veil. I had understood, grasped what painting could be; through the mere example of this painter in love with his art and independence, my destiny as a painter had opened up' (Maurice Serullaz, The Impressionist Painters, Paris, 1960, pp. 35-36.)
The present work was sold in Paris at auction in 1878 and reappeared in New York in 1899. Handled over the years by Boudin specialists, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Arthur Tooth and Sons and Alex Reid & Lefevre; the work has rarely been exhibited publicly.
During he summer of 1865, Boudin worked on the Normandy coast at the same time as his illustrious contemporaries, Monet, Courbet, and Whistler. Amongst all of them, it was Boudin who had the greatest affinity for the sea and above all else he cherished the wonderful range of light effects which working by the sea could bring. He had a great eye for the limitless skies, punctuated by beautiful cloud formations and often he would dedicate more than half of the canvas to depicting the nuances of a sky above the figures on the beach. Corot had no doubt of Boudin's skills saying simply, 'Boudin, you are the king of the skies.'
Perhaps his greatest seascapes are the crinolines which he painted at sunset. This certainly seems to be confirmed by the number of sunset beach scenes which have found their way into the world's great museums. Aside from the work in the Minneapolis Institute of Art mentioned above, others are housed in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (S.298) the Walter H. Annenberg Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (S.342) and the Louvre, Paris.
Charles Beaudelaire carefully describes the qualities and working methods of Boudin in his Salon review of 1859. In the description which follows, we can appreciate how different Boudin's approach was to his 19th Century French academic contemporaries:
'On the margin of each of [his] studies, so rapidly and so faithfully sketched from the waves and the clouds (which are of all things the most inconstant and difficult to grasp, both in form and in colour), he has inscribed the date, the time and the wind. If you have ever had the time to become acquainted with these meteorological beauties, you will be able to verify by memory the accuracy of M. Boudin's observations. Cover the inscription with your hand, and you could guess the season, the time and the wind. I am not exaggerating. I have seen it. In the end, all these clouds, with their fantastic and luminous forms; these ferments of gloom; these immensities of green and pink, suspended and added one upon another; these gaping furnaces; these firmaments of black or purple satin, crumpled, rolled or torn; these horizons in mourning, or streaming with molten metal--in short, all these depths and all these splendours rose to my brain like a heady drink or like the eloquence of opium.' (C. Beaudelaire, 'The Salon of 1859', in Art in Paris, 1845-1862: Salons and Other Exhibitions, J. Mayne (trans. and ed.), Greenwich, 1965, pp. 199-200).
Boudin had unquestionably been encouraged to work in Trouville by the commissions and sales that work in this fashionable coastal resort would bring. In 1863 Queen Hortense and the Empress Eugènie made trips to Trouville and Deauville which immediately made both resorts very fashionable. Of his new public, Boudin wrote 'they love my ladies on the beach and some people say that there is a thread of gold to exploit there.' In the decade that followed, Boudin continued to visit Normandy and found for himself great financial security as a result. It is extraordinary to think that had Monet not been in such dire financial straits in the spring of 1870, he would perhaps have not needed to turn to Boudin for guidance. In the summer of 1870, Monet fled his Parisian creditors to join Boudin in Trouville in search of subject matter as well as wealthy patronage. A fine example of Monet's debt to Boudin is the wonderful Sur les planches de Trouville of 1870 offered at Christie's in London in December 1997, Lot 10. In handling and feel it is the closest that Monet came to working in Boudin's style.
The incredible impact that Boudin's working methods and subject had on Monet in 1870 as they worked together is well recorded in the history of Impressionism. In this critical summer, Boudin was Monet's mentor and with it his painting took new direction:
'I agreed to work with him in the open air... I watched him with some apprehension, then more attentively and finally it was like the sudden tearing of a veil. I had understood, grasped what painting could be; through the mere example of this painter in love with his art and independence, my destiny as a painter had opened up' (Maurice Serullaz, The Impressionist Painters, Paris, 1960, pp. 35-36.)
The present work was sold in Paris at auction in 1878 and reappeared in New York in 1899. Handled over the years by Boudin specialists, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Arthur Tooth and Sons and Alex Reid & Lefevre; the work has rarely been exhibited publicly.