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拍品专文
Boudin's visits to Venice represent a significant moment in his career, occupying the same relative importance in the 1890s as the Trouville beach pictures had in the 1860s. The subject of Venice—from the 18th century vedutisti, particularly with Canaletto and Francesco Guardi (the latter of whom Boudin had made copies after in the Louvre in the 1860s), through to William Turner and Félix Ziem in the 19th-century—exerted an enduring appeal on artists, art collectors and art lovers alike.
He was sixty-seven years old when he traveled to Venice for the first time in 1892. Invigorated by his success that year, with the French state purchasing one of his paintings at the Salon and his receipt of the prestigious Légion d'honneur, Boudin came to Italy in search of new light and motifs. Infatuated with the ancient city, he returned for a brief sojourn in June 1894 and again for a final and more prolonged stay in May 1895, where he would spend two months. During the latter visit, he produced seventy-five views of Venice, painting the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, the Canal Grande, the Palazzo Ducale, the islands of Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore, the Riva degli Schiavoni and the small canals.
His stay in Italy was exhilarating and challenging at the same time. While the warm climate encouraged him to work en plein air and the bright Venetian light and famous haze allowed him to indulge his skill with atmospheric effects, painting Venice was not without difficulty. In a letter to his friend Ebstein from May 1895 he wrote “I have begun to paint but have found it quite hard for different reasons, especially because of the architecture of the monuments which require meticulous attention…” (quoted in “La lumière du Sud, les derniers voyage” in Eugène Boudin, exh. cat., Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 2013, p. 210). Yet, the style of Boudin’s Venice paintings differs little from his treatment of the French coast: we find the same spontaneity, delicacy and a similar palette. In a letter to Paul Durand-Ruel from June 1895 he wrote “I am busy painting views of Venice, a superb town as I have no need to tell you, but somewhat disguised by the usual painters of the area, who to some extent disfigured it by making it appear as a region warmed by the hottest suns… Venice like all luminous regions is gray in color, the atmosphere is soft and misty and the sky is decked with clouds just like the skies over Normandy or Holland” (quoted in J. Selz, E. Boudin, New York, 1982, p. 86).
He was sixty-seven years old when he traveled to Venice for the first time in 1892. Invigorated by his success that year, with the French state purchasing one of his paintings at the Salon and his receipt of the prestigious Légion d'honneur, Boudin came to Italy in search of new light and motifs. Infatuated with the ancient city, he returned for a brief sojourn in June 1894 and again for a final and more prolonged stay in May 1895, where he would spend two months. During the latter visit, he produced seventy-five views of Venice, painting the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, the Canal Grande, the Palazzo Ducale, the islands of Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore, the Riva degli Schiavoni and the small canals.
His stay in Italy was exhilarating and challenging at the same time. While the warm climate encouraged him to work en plein air and the bright Venetian light and famous haze allowed him to indulge his skill with atmospheric effects, painting Venice was not without difficulty. In a letter to his friend Ebstein from May 1895 he wrote “I have begun to paint but have found it quite hard for different reasons, especially because of the architecture of the monuments which require meticulous attention…” (quoted in “La lumière du Sud, les derniers voyage” in Eugène Boudin, exh. cat., Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 2013, p. 210). Yet, the style of Boudin’s Venice paintings differs little from his treatment of the French coast: we find the same spontaneity, delicacy and a similar palette. In a letter to Paul Durand-Ruel from June 1895 he wrote “I am busy painting views of Venice, a superb town as I have no need to tell you, but somewhat disguised by the usual painters of the area, who to some extent disfigured it by making it appear as a region warmed by the hottest suns… Venice like all luminous regions is gray in color, the atmosphere is soft and misty and the sky is decked with clouds just like the skies over Normandy or Holland” (quoted in J. Selz, E. Boudin, New York, 1982, p. 86).