Entrance to the Port of Le Havre (Primary Title)
Eugène Boudin, French, 1824 - 1898 (Artist)
The ambitious proportions of Entrance to the Port of Le Havre and A French Fishing Fleet with Packet Boat suggest that Boudin intended the two paintings for exhibition as a pair at the Salon. They figure among Boudin's most accomplished seascapes.
Le Havre is located at the mouth of the River Seine, facilitating the transportation of commercial goods to and from Paris and serving as France’s second-largest seaport by the mid-19th century. Although these developments in trade and industry reflected the country’s growing economic prosperity, Entrance to the Port of Le Havre demonstrates Boudin’s increasing concern that the replacement of sailboats by steamships would “make the sea a very monotonous place.” Behind the rowboats that cut across the foreground and the sailboats with swollen masts approaching from the center of the composition, two steamers pollute the sky with thick black smoke under the darkened clouds of an impending squall. This same motif is present in A French Fishing Fleet with Packet Boat, although the dramatic movement of the fleet of sailboats through the choppy ocean waters in this painting is lent emphasis by the tumultuously clouded sky typical of Boudin’s seascapes.
Signed, inscribed and dated lower right: "Le Havre / E. Boudin 88".
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
2019-2020: "Van Gogh Monet Degas, The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", Palazzo Zabarella, Padua, Italy, October 26, 2019 - March 1, 2020
2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021
2018: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021
2018: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC
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