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Lot Essay
Drawn to the beaches of Trouville, Boudin prolifically painted the wealthy bourgeoisie who flocked to the coast for their summer sojourn. After the railroad station of Trouville was erected in 1863, it transformed into a veritable transplant of Parisian boulevard culture, littered with fashionable women and their parasols as soon as the casinos opened on the first of July. Boudin’s vibrant paintings captured this modern escape from the city, with merry gatherings socializing and taking in sun.
Boudin, the owner of a painting and frame shop in Le Havre, first painted this seaside resort town in 1862. Heeding poet Charles Baudelaire’s exhortation to paint modern life, Boudin was attracted to the throng of vacationers. His so-called “crinoline” paintings, named for ladies’ hoopskirts, accounted for the majority of the paintings Boudin showed at the Salon between 1864 and 1869, winning him widespread acclaim.
Though the 1860s crinoline paintings were executed in the studio on large or medium canvas formats for formal exhibition venues, Boudin was also growing accustomed to painting en plen air on small panels, a support that lent itself to the outdoors. During the 1870s, these accounted for most of his Boudin beach paintings and would later dominate his paintings of this genre. These iconic portrayals came to define his oeuvre, as he admitted in a letter to his brother in November 1865: “I shall do other things, but I will always be the painter of beaches” (quoted in G. Jean-Aubry, Eugène Boudin, d'après des documents inédits, Paris, 1922, p. 62).
Boudin, the owner of a painting and frame shop in Le Havre, first painted this seaside resort town in 1862. Heeding poet Charles Baudelaire’s exhortation to paint modern life, Boudin was attracted to the throng of vacationers. His so-called “crinoline” paintings, named for ladies’ hoopskirts, accounted for the majority of the paintings Boudin showed at the Salon between 1864 and 1869, winning him widespread acclaim.
Though the 1860s crinoline paintings were executed in the studio on large or medium canvas formats for formal exhibition venues, Boudin was also growing accustomed to painting en plen air on small panels, a support that lent itself to the outdoors. During the 1870s, these accounted for most of his Boudin beach paintings and would later dominate his paintings of this genre. These iconic portrayals came to define his oeuvre, as he admitted in a letter to his brother in November 1865: “I shall do other things, but I will always be the painter of beaches” (quoted in G. Jean-Aubry, Eugène Boudin, d'après des documents inédits, Paris, 1922, p. 62).