Plougastel: Shrimp Fisherwomen

Boudin spent the winter of the Franco-Prussian war in Brussels and then Antwerp, painting fish markets, canals and commercial docks, and he was back in France in 1871, the year this small panel is dated. The place is Plougastel, on the peninsula between the river Elorn and the roadstead of Brest. The women stand in the costume of that parish, which held its 19th-century form long after most of France had given hers up, and an early title for the picture identifies them as shrimpers. It is oil on panel, about 24 by 41 centimetres, the kind of board Boudin could carry down to the water and finish in one sitting.