A Fishing Boat, Trouville

Trouville had been a fashionable resort for 30 years by the time Boudin painted this. The railway reached that part of the Normandy coast in the 1860s, Paris emptied onto the sand every summer, and Boudin made his living painting the visitors under their parasols. The fishing fleet went on working alongside all of it. He was a harbour pilot's son from Honfleur, a few miles down the coast, and he had known the boats long before the holidaymakers arrived. This is a small panel, the kind he could hold in one hand and finish outdoors at a sitting. He was in his late 60s and unwell by then, wintering in the south of France for the mild air and coming north for the summer light. In 1898 he asked to be taken home to Deauville, next door to Trouville, and died there in August.