Eugene Boudin - Beach Scene, Trouville [c.1860-70]

This painting is one of the two panels that may have belonged to Monet. Characteristic of Boudin's approach is the delicate fragmentation of the handling, which invests the scene with a sense of atmospheric freshness. This work records a bright but cloudy day with a group of fashionably dressed visitors gathered around a flagpole on the sandy beach.

Between the misty blue of the sky and the brown tones of the sand, an emphatic white dress is visible in the centre, with touches of bright red and blue among the figures to each side. The seated figures to the left suggest comparison with Monet's painting of 1870, which probably shows Boudin's wife to the right, seated beside Mme Monet.

[Oil on wood, 21.6 x 45.8 cm]
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