The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

View of Bordeaux, from the Quai des Chartrons

1874

Eugène Boudin

(French, 1824–1898)

France, 19th century

oil on fabric

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.)

John L. Severance Fund and Gift of Mrs. Dudley S. Blossom, Jr. 1986.73

Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Pentimenti, the visible trace of earlier painting, appears among the diagonal rigging of the small ship at the left, indicating that the artist did not thoroughly work out his composition before beginning his picture and slightly changed the position of these lines while painting.

Description

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.

(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
Provenance Footnotes
1 1 A painting titled "Vue de Bordeaux" that matches the dimensions of the Cleveland picture appears in this sale of works by Boudin.
2 1 Scholl was the lender of the Cleveland picture to a Boudin exhibition at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1899.
3 1 The annotated copy of this catalogue held by Hôtel Drouot indicates that the buyer of the Boudin was “Allard.” This notation likely refers to Galerie Allard et Noël, Paris, which appears in the provenances of several other paintings by Boudin, including one currently in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (67.906). Schmit’s Boudin catalogue raisonné lists “Gérard, Paris” following the 1921 sale in this painting’s provenance. Gérard may refer to Félix Gérard, a dealer who lent a Boudin to the 1899 exhibition in which the CMA painting appears. More likely, “Gérard” may be Raphael Gérard, a dealer who held a Boudin retrospective exhibition in 1937 and who bought and sold a number of works by the artist. Raphael Gérard also appears following Galerie Allard & Noël in the provenance of a Boudin currently at the MFA Boston. Although this connection between Allard & Noël and Raphael Gérard does strongly suggest that the Cleveland picture passed through the latter’s hands, no primary documentation has been found that situates the painting with any dealer or collector by the name of Gérard. Following Gérard, Schmit includes Galerie Abels, Cologne, in the provenance, but again, thus far no confirmation that this dealer had the CMA painting has been located.
4 1 The CMA painting is no. 4 in the 1950 van Wisselingh & Co. exhibition, Maîtres français XIXme et XXme siècles. Following van Wisselingh, the Schmit catalogue raisonné lists dealer C. R. A. van Stolk, from Bergen, the Netherlands; no documentation of his involvement in the sale of the Cleveland Boudin has been found to date.
Joseph Baillio, letter to Roger Diederen, Sept. 9, 1996, in CMA curatorial file.
Joseph Baillio, letter to Roger Diederen, Sept. 9, 1996, in CMA curatorial file.
E.J. van Wisselingh & co. Maîtres français XIXme et XXme siècles, 17 juillet-9 septembre 1950. Amsterdam: E.J. Van Wisselingh & Co, 1950.
Schmit, Robert. Eugène Boudin, 1824-1898. Paris: Schmit, 1973.
Hôtel Drouot. Tableaux modernes. June 17, 1921.
Hôtel Drouot. Tableaux modernes. June 17, 1921.
Exposition des oeuvres d'Eugène Boudin, du 9 au 30 janvier 1899... [Paris], Ecole des beaux-arts. Paris (64 rue Amelot): Typ. Morris père & fils, 1899.
Schmit, Robert. Eugène Boudin, 1824-1898. Paris: Schmit, 1973.
Hôtel Drouot. Tableaux modernes, aquarelles, dessins. Feb. 28, 1877.
Coe, Nancy. The History of the Collecting of European Paintings and Drawings in the City of Cleveland. Thesis M.A. Oberlin College, 1955. Reproduced: v. 2, p. 6
Schmit, Robert. Eugène Boudin, 1824-1898. Paris, France: Schmit, 1973. Reproduced: p. 968, vol I
Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1986." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LXXIV, no.2 (February, 1986): 38-79. Reproduced: p. 53; Mentioned: p. 52, p. 62, no. 31
Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. Reproduced: p. 20
D' Argencourt, Louis, and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. Mentioned and reproduced: v. 1, p. 70-72
Brady, Peter. The Spirit of Impressionism. London, United Kingdom: Richard Green, 2003. Reproduced: pl. 3
Brady, Peter. The Spirit of Impressionism. London: Richard Green, 2003. Reproduced: pl. 3
Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987).
Exposition des oeuvres d'Eugène Boudin. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France (1899).
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https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1986.73