Lot 2286 Dα

Eugène Boudin's art is intimately linked to Normandy, where the painter was born in 1824 and where he not only spent the majority of his life, but also found the motifs for his magnificent works. He never stayed long in Paris, because he wanted to "work in nature" from the very beginning. His watercolours, pastels and paintings show the beaches, harbours and villages of the French coast along the English Channel, the Norman fishermen with their wives and children as well as the elegant Parisian society that visited the fine sandy seaside resorts of Honfleur or Deauville every year.
In 1859, Boudin exhibited a pastel at the Paris Salon, which inspired Charles Baudelaire to write a longer essay. This caused the painter's circle of friends and admirers to grow significantly: Courbet, Corot, Degas, Monet - to name but a few of his contemporaries - were in contact and artistic exchange with him. Soon he was considered an important pioneer of Impressionism.
Robert Schmitt, author of Eugène Boudin's catalogue raisonné, dates the present work to the years between 1880 and 1885. It depicts a wonderfully atmospheric view, or "impression", of the port of Trouville. The low and narrow horizon line between the water and the sky upon which the ships and fishing boats are moored leaves enough space for the atmospheric elements, to which the painter attached such great importance here, as in all his other paintings, to shine.