The Beach at Villerville

1864

Eugène Boudin

Artist, French, 1824 - 1898

About three dozen men and women sit, stand, or stroll along a sandy beach beneath a sunset-streaked sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The people are small in scale within the landscape, taking up about a quarter of the canvas's height. The scene is loosely painted so many of the facial features are indistinct, but the faces we can see have pale or olive-toned skin. The area closest to us is a strip of sand, and, a short distance away, a brown and white dog sits facing away from us to our left of center. The women all wear dresses with long sleeves, tight bodices, and ankle-length hoop skirts in shades of baby blue, smoke gray, butter yellow, chocolate brown, crimson red, black, or white. Some wear jackets, capes, or shawls, and veils flutter off some of their hats and bonnets. The men wear suits with long tails and rounded hats. Most of the people sit in wooden chairs, and a few stand or walk along the beach. The walking women carrying long sticks or canes. Smudges of ruby red, slate blue, and a touch of straw yellow could be the form of a child crouching in the sand, to our left. Two ladderback chairs sit near the crowd to our right. The horizon comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition. Thin screens of pale gray clouds above are touched on the undersides with petal pink, and they break to show peeks of soft yellow along the horizon and topaz blue a bit higher up.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 92

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 45.7 x 76.3 cm (18 x 30 1/16 in.)
    framed: 71.7 × 102.9 cm (28 1/4 × 40 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1963.10.4

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Acquired in Boston or New York, 1866, as Beach near Scheveningen by Dr. Henry Clay Angell [d. 1911], Boston; by inheritance to his wife Martha Bartlett Angell [d. 1919], Boston; gift 1916 to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;[1] 1950 to (E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York);[2] sold 1951 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York;[3] bequest 1963 to NGA.
[1]Accession no. 19.99, gift of Angell made in 1916, but not accessioned by museum until 1919. See Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin XVII, no. 101 (June 1919) on the Angell gift. [2] In partial purchase and exchange for Boston MFA 50.2716. [3]Invoice dated 21 May 1951 to Chester Dale from E. and A. Silberman Galleries in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1915

  • Opening Exhibition, Robert Dawson Evans Memorial Galleries for Paintings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1915, unnumbered checklist in Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin XIII, no. 75 (3 February 1915)

1935

  • Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Eugene Boudin, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1935-1936, no. 1

1940

  • Golden Gate International Exhibition, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1940, no. 233

1942

  • French Impressionist Paintings, exhibition to inaugurate McCormick Gallery, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1942, no cat.

1951

  • Portraits, Figures and Landscapes, The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, 1951, no. 4

1959

  • Masterpieces of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

1989

  • Paintings by Eugène Boudin from the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1989, no cat.

2007

  • Eugène Boudin at the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2007, no cat.

2010

  • From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, January 2010-January 2012, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1963

  • MacNeil, Neil. "Chester Dale: Collector." McCalls (November 1963): 124, repro.

1965

  • Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 61, repro.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 18.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:432, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 12, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 40, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 440, no. 629, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 59, repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 352, no. 285, color repro.

2022

  • Galvez, Paul. Courbet’s Landscapes: The Origins of Modern Painting. New Haven, 2022: 88, 89, color figure 33.

Inscriptions

lower right: E. Boudin-64.

Wikidata ID

Q20188646

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