Festival in the Harbor of Honfleur

1858

Eugène Boudin

Artist, French, 1824 - 1898

Eugène Boudin

Attributed to

This horizontal painting shows a harbor scene filled with tall-masted ships and steamships adorned with colorful flags. The masts of the ship to our left dominate the composition, reaching almost to the top edge of the painting. This ship has a black and white hull and is docked alongside a quay lined with buildings in the left third of the painting. The masts are rigged with ropes and draped with long, strings of flags in red, yellow, blue, and white. A group of people with light-colored clothing gather in small boats around the ship to our left. Another vessel moored in the middle of the painting is also strung with flags, and to our right, a dark steamship with a single smokestack is festooned with similar banners. It floats farther from the quay and town buildings. The water is busy with many people swimming or floating, particularly toward the lower right. Dense buildings line the opposite shore under a blue sky scattered with soft, white clouds. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition so most of the flags are outlined against the sky. The artist signed the lower left corner, “Boudin” with the number 5 followed by an illegible number. In the lower right is the location with some of the letters missing so it reads “Hon eur.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on wood

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall: 41 x 59.3 cm (16 1/8 x 23 3/8 in.)
    framed: 62.2 x 81.3 x 6.3 cm (24 1/2 x 32 x 2 1/2 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1983.1.10

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Private collection, Bordeaux. (Galerie Schmit, Paris).[1] (Bernheim, Paris); sold 1959 to (Wildenstein and Co., London, New York and Paris);[2] sold 1959 to Paul Mellon [1907-1999], Upperville, VIrginia; gift 1983 to NGA.
[1] Robert Schmit, Eugène Boudin 1824-1898, 3 vols., Paris, 1973: 1;no. 191.
[2] Wildenstein acquisition date and source provided in letter dated 14 December 1998, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1966

  • French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 9, repro.

1982

  • Manet and Modern Paris, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1982, no. 95, repro.

1989

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

2003

  • Manet and the Sea, Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 2003-2004, unnumbered catalogue, pl. 82.

2007

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

  • Eugène Boudin, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 2007-2008, no cat.

2009

  • Loan to display with permanent collection, Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland, 2009-2010, no catalogue.

2011

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Art Center, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2011, not in catalogue (shown only in Tokyo and Kyoto).

2013

  • Eugène Boudin, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 2013, no. 4, repro.

  • Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art, Museo dell'Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome (exhibition title in this venue: Impressionist Gems); California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo, Seattle Art Museum, 2013-2016, pl. 8.

Bibliography

1966

  • Goldwater, Robert. "The Glory that was France." Art News 65 (March 1966): 40, repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 63, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: Boudin 5[8?]; lower right: Hon[fl]eur

Wikidata ID

Q20188396

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