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About two dozen men and women sit in straight-backed, wooden chairs gathered along a sandy beach near low, gently breaking waves with sailboats floating in the ocean beyond in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted throughout, making much of the detail indistinct. Most of the people sit with their backs to us but the faces we can see suggest they all have light skin. The people gather in a loose crowd that crosses the right two-thirds of the composition. The women wear long dresses with full skirts, their shoulders wrapped in matching shawls in black, smoke gray, royal or arctic blue, rust red, or cream white. Some wear straw-colored hats with black or baby-blue bands, and others wear scarves over their hair. The men also wear hats, most of them black top hats, and suits in black or pecan brown. Some people hold up parasols in harvest gold, slate blue, teal, or gray. A few straight-backed, wooden chairs with rushed seats sit empty or are tipped over to our left of the group. Two children, one wearing marigold orange and the other topaz blue, and both wearing straw hats, kneel or squat and bend over the sand at the center of the group. Two dark brown or black dogs, one small and one large, stand to our right. Two tall, wooden poles rise high above the crowd near the right edge of the composition. A thin banner with blue, white, and red stripes flutters from the pole closer to us, and a red banner lifts in the breeze on the one farther away. Painted with thick, visible brushstrokes, low waves with white crests lap against the shore in bands of pale lilac purple, light turquoise, and aquamarine blue just beyond the crowd. Two people sit in a rowboat in the ocean to our left, and several sailboats with tan sails move into the distance to the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up the composition. Bright white strokes to our right could be sails in bright sunlight, deep in the distance. One boat amid the sailboats puffs a plume of gray smoke. Pale, almost translucent white clouds drift across the light blue sky above. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner: “E. Boudin 63.”

Eugène Boudin

Beach Scene at Trouville, 1863

Not on View

Medium

oil on wood

Dimensions

overall: 34.8 x 57.5 cm (13 11/16 x 22 5/8 in.)

framed: 55.6 x 78.1 x 3.8 cm (21 7/8 x 30 3/4 x 1 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1983.1.14

Artists / Makers

Eugène Boudin (artist) French, 1824 - 1898

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower left: E. Boudin 63

Provenance

Charles de Bériot, Paris; (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11 March 1901, no. 1); purchased by Georges Feydeau; (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 4 April 1903, no. 3); purchased by (Bernheim-Jeune).[1] (Durand-Ruel, Paris). (Hodebert, Paris). A. Comard, Paris. (Carroll Carstairs Gallery, New York); sold January 1958 to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA;[2] gift 1983 to NGA.

[1] Annotated sales catalogues and press clippings in M. Knoedler library and microfiche.

[2] Durand-Ruel through Mellon according to Mellon records in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Bernheim-Jeune
Bériot, Charles de
Carstairs Gallery
Comard, A.
Drouot, Hôtel
Durand-Ruel et Cie
Feydeau, Georges
Hodebert
Mellon, Paul

Exhibition History

1955: Europäische Meister 1790-1910, Kunstmuseum, Winterthur, 1955, no. 19, as Plage.

1966: French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 10, repro.

1989: Paintings by Eugène Boudin from the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1989, no cat.

1992: Boudin at Trouville, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museum; Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, 1992-1993, no. 30, repro., as The Beach at Trouville.

2003: Manet and the Sea, Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 2003-2004, unnumbered catalogue, pl. 83.

2007: Eugène Boudin at the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2007, no cat.

2007: Eugene Boudin, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 2007-2008, no cat.

2013: Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art, Museo dell'Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome (exhibition title in this venue: Impressionist Gems); California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo, Seattle Art Museum, 2013-2016.

Bibliography

1927: Roger-Marx, Claude. E. Boudin Paris, 1927: plate 5, as Plage.

1973: Schmit, Robert. Eugéne Boudin, 1824-1898. 3 vols. Paris, 1973: 1:no. 274.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 64, repro.