Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009596View of Bordeaux, from the Quai des Chartrons
About the Artwork
In 1873, Boudin made his first visit to the important port city of Bordeaux as a guest of the resident art collector Arthur Bourges. Between 1874 and 1876, Boudin made paintings of the city's harbor and docks. This was an especially stimulating time in Boudin's career, as he was invited to exhibit in 1874 with the newly-founded Société anonyme des artistes, soon to be known as the Impressionists. As in many of his views, Boudin concentrated here on the quais or working docks where goods were loaded and unloaded and sailors left in small dinghies for the larger vessels on which they worked. The low horizon line relegates much of the canvas to pure sky, but the soaring vertical and diagonal forms of the masts complement this horizontal thrust and open space. Many contemporaries greatly admired Boudin's ability to paint skies. Here, one can see the way in which he brushed on a tan color, then went over it, probably while it was still wet, with a thin but opaque application of white, to create a fresh, airy quality. For the darker areas representing water, Boudin laid in an olive-green tone.
Inscriptions
Signed lower right: E. Boudin / Bordeaux 1874
Provenance
(Boudin sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Feb. 28, 1877, no. 30) 1 Aurélien Scholl [1833-1902], Paris 1 (Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 17, 1921 (no. 52), probably sold to Galerie Allard & Noël) (Probably Galerie Allard & Noël, Paris) 1 (E. J. van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam) 1 Private collection, Washington, D.C., to Wildenstein & Co. (Wildenstein & Co., New York, sold to Emily Blossom) Emily Blossom [1913-1991], Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Eugène Boudin (French, 1824–1898)
- Date
- 1874
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- Framed: 80.5 x 115.5 x 10 cm (31 11/16 x 45 1/2 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 54.7 x 89.5 cm (21 9/16 x 35 1/4 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund and Gift of Mrs. Dudley S. Blossom Jr.
- Accession no.
- 1986.73
More by Eugène-Louis Boudin in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009596
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