Still-life

This is an unusual Boudin. The painter who became famous for beaches and vast skies made it in 1858, indoors, as a still life. In these years he turned out a run of what he called dining-room pictures, modest arrangements that sold to collectors in Le Havre, the port town where he had run a small framing and stationery shop. It was steady, unglamorous work at a point when he had barely begun to find his real subject out on the coast. There is little drama here, only carefully watched objects and quiet light. He was 34, and the wide gray skies that would make his name were still a few years ahead of him.