Étretat. The Cliff of Aval

Boudin spent 20 September to 3 October 1890 at Étretat, on the Normandy coast, and it was a crowded year for him. Buyers wanted more of his pictures than he could easily paint, and the Paris dealer Paul Durand-Ruel was planning a large exhibition of his work for that December. The resort was crowded too. A fishing village of under a thousand people at the start of the century, Étretat had turned into a fashionable summer destination, with its hotel and its beach full of visitors. None of that is here. Boudin, whose beaches are usually dotted with tiny figures, leaves out the town, the hotel and even the sand. He paints only the Porte d'Aval, the cliff west of the bay with its arch and the stone needle beside it, rising more than 80 metres above the water. The one sign of people is the little fleet of fishing boats on the right, coming home with the catch.