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Property of a Swiss private collector EUGÈNE BOUDIN (1824-1898) Portrieux, débarquement d'un Terr...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:250,000.00 - 350,000.00 USD
Property of a Swiss private collector EUGÈNE BOUDIN (1824-1898) Portrieux, débarquement d'un Terr...
Property of a Swiss private collector
EUGÈNE BOUDIN
(1824-1898)
Portrieux, débarquement
d'un Terre-Neuvas
signed and dated "Boudin 1873" (lower right), inscribed
"Portrieux" (lower left)
oil on canvas
19 5/8 x 29 1/8 in. (50 x 74 cm)
painted in 1873
Estimate: $250,000-350,000 <p>Provenance
Pieter Van der Velde, Le Havre (acquired in 1889 for 400FF)
Mr. Wallis (acquired from the above in 1922 for 8,000FF)
Wallis & Sons, London
William Thorburne, London (sale: Christie's, London, May 13, 1927, lot 134)
Mr. Sampson, London (acquired at the above sale)
Anon. sale: Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, January 16, 1954, lot 72
Anon. sale: Sotheby's, London, June 22, 1955, lot 176
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal <p>Literature
Ruth L. Benjamin, Eugène Boudin, New York, 1937, p. 178
Robert Schmit, Boudin, (1824-1898), Paris, 1973, vol. I, p. 323, no. 908 (illustrated)
This canvas is one of the artist's largest and most detailed depictions of Portrieux dating from the early Impressionist period between 1871 and 1874. Painted the year preceding the first Impressionist Exhibition in Paris, this work alludes to a loosening of technique and brushstroke that was to become his signature by the end of this pivotal decade. The vitality of Boudin's plein-airisme is evoked by the spontaneity of the numerous figures:
"Everything painted on the spot has a strength, vigour and vivacity of touch that can never be attained in the studio. Three brushstrokes from nature are worth more than two days in the studio at the easel" (E. Boudin, quoted in THE BIRTH OF IMPRESSIONISM, FROM CONSTABLE TO MONET, Glasgow, 1997, p. 23).
An obsession with Boudin, as with many other Impressionists, the changing weather conditions and, therefore, the play of light are central to the painting's atmosphere. The approaching heavy storm dominates the composition and adds a sense of movement and urgency to the tasks of the fishermen in the foreground. "Sometimes when I'm out walking in a melancholy frame of mind, I look at this light which floods the earth, which quivers on the water and plays on clothes and it is frightening to think how much genius is required to capture so many difficulties, how limited a man's spirit is, not being able to input all these things together in his head. And then again I sense that the poetry is there and sense how to capture it" (E. Boudin, quoted in ibid., p. 90).
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