Scheveningen

In the 1870s Boudin crossed from his native Normandy to the Dutch coast, and this stretch of sand is Scheveningen, the fishing beach outside The Hague. There was no harbour here. The heavy flat-bottomed boats were simply run up onto the sand, and the whole business of the catch happened in the open, which is what fills the lower strip of the picture with figures and dark hulls. Boudin had spent years on the fashionable beaches of Trouville painting parasols and summer visitors. This is the working version of the same coast. Corot called him the king of skies, and he gives most of the canvas here to weather over the North Sea. The painting was sold at Le Havre in 1879.