Harbor Scene

For years this small panel came with a family story. When Mrs Henry Bliss gave it to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1967, she told the museum that her husband's grandfather, Edward P. Bliss, had probably bought it in Europe late in the 19th century, which would have brought it to Massachusetts while Boudin was still alive. The museum could not confirm it. The standard catalogue of Boudin's work, published in Paris in 1973, traced the panel through two Paris dealers, Allard et Noël and the Galerie Raphaël Gérard, and the second of those was only active in the 20th century. So the first owner who can actually be documented is Henry Warren Bliss, who died in 1946. The painting is dated to somewhere between about 1888 and 1895. A big square-rigged ship lies at the quay on the left with its sails let down loose, more masts crowd in behind it, and the still water of the basin gives back their reflections. Boudin signed it in the lower right corner.