Dordrecht, the Grote Kerk from the Canal

In the spring of 1874 Eugene Boudin showed work in the photographer Nadar's studio in Paris, in the exhibition that soon had its painters nicknamed Impressionists. That same year he was in Holland with a wooden panel about 35 centimetres high, small enough to set up anywhere, looking at the Grote Kerk of Dordrecht across the still water of a canal. He was on old ground. Aelbert Cuyp, born in Dordrecht in 1620, had painted that same heavy tower over water again and again, and the Dutch masters of the 17th century were Boudin's earliest loves as a painter. The tower itself is an abandoned job. Building started in 1339 and stopped by 1506, the soft Dutch soil tipping it out of true, so the stone octagon and spire drawn up for the top were never raised. The four clock faces that cap it instead went up in 1626.