Golfe-Juan

On 1 March 1815 Napoleon, escaped from exile on the island of Elba, came ashore on this beach with a small army and set off north toward Paris. By 1893, when Boudin painted here, Golfe-Juan was a quiet bay between Cannes and Cap d'Antibes, and a regular anchorage for the French Navy's Mediterranean squadron. The picture looks out across that roadstead. A line of ships lies at anchor along the horizon, one of them sending up a thin thread of smoke, with low hills behind and dark rocks breaking the water in front. It is a small canvas, about 27 by 41 centimetres, and it now belongs to the National Galleries of Scotland. Boudin signed and dated it in the lower right corner and wrote Golfe Juan beneath his name.